Pietro Antonio Martini
Pietro Antonio Martini (1738–1797) was an Italian painter and engraver, active in a late Baroque style.
Biography
Born at Trecasali, he went to Paris to learn engraving working with Jacques-Philippe Le Bas. He also worked in London. He died in Parma.
One of the subjects of his etchings was views of late 18th-century art exhibitions themselves. For example, one etching depicts the 1785 Salon exhibition at the Louvre;[1] another engraving depicts a View of the Salon of 1785; and a third, the Exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1787.[2] These engravings are historically instructive in demonstrating the crowded stacked displays of artworks utilized in this period. Other etchings indicated that the admiring crowds may have been a stock image for use in other similar engravings.[3]
Among his etchings are the following:[4]
- Plates after Teniers and other Flemish artists
- Heliodorus driven from the Temple, after Francesco Solimena
- Christ driving the Money-changors from the Temple, after Solimena
- Architectural Ruins, after Robert
- Pleasures of Summer, after Horace Vernet
- View of Spoletto, after Vernet
- View of Porto Ercole, after Vernet
- View of Avignon, after Vernet
- The Augurs, after Salvatore Rosa; etched by Martini, finished by le Bas.
References
- ↑ Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1785 Louvre Exhibition engraving.
- ↑ Victoria and Albert Museum collection
- ↑ Art Institute of Chicago, engraving of Salon du Louvre of 1787.
- ↑ Spooner, Shearjashub (1873). A Biographical History of the Fine Arts, Being Memoirs of the Lives and Works of Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects. Philadelphia: G. Gebbie. p. 527..