BARTHOLOMEO NAZZARI (attr. to) (Clusone, 1693 - Milan, 1758) Portrait of a Gentleman Oil on canvas, 76X63.5 cm Provenance: Private collection Bartolomeo Nazzari is believed to have trained with Vittore Ghislandi, known as Fra Galgario, but thanks to the benevolence of Count Ferdinand Thurn the young man moved to Venice at the age of 17 and placed himself under the tutelage of Angelo Trevisani. In 1723 the painter moved to Rome, where he studied with Angelo's brother, Francesco Trevisani, and with another famous portrait painter, Benedetto Luti, before returning to Venice in 1726, the year in which he is first mentioned as a member of the Fraglia dei Pittori. Among his patrons were Consul Joseph Smith and Marshal Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg, and this denotes his professional success, particularly his skills as a portrait painter. In fact, his art shows a peculiar ability to modulate light planes, while his study of the chiarist rococo of Jacopo Amigoni and Rosalba Carriera enabled him to create images of greater empathy, experimenting a mediation between European rococo portraiture and certain idealising instances. Reference bibliography: R. Pallucchini, La Pittura nel Veneto. Il Settecento, I, Milan 1995, pp. 269-280