Alessandro Turchi

Alessandro Turchi, Bacchus and Ariadne, Hermitage Museum

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Alessandro Turchi (1578 – 22 January 1649) was an Italian painter of the early Baroque, born and active mainly in Verona, and moving late in life to Rome. He also went by the name Alessandro Veronese or the nickname L'Orbetto.

Turchi initially trained with Felice Riccio (il Brusasorci) in Verona. By 1603, he is already working as independent painter, and in 1606-1609, Turchi paints the organ shutters for the Filarmonica Academy of Verona. When Brusasorci dies in 1605, Turchi and his fellow Pasquale Ottino complete a series of their deceased master's canvases. In 1610, he completes an Assumption altarpiece for the church of San Luca of Verona In 1612, the Veronese Guild of the Goldsmiths commissions an altarpiece, today lost, of the Madonna and Saints. On leaving the school of Riccio, he went to Venice, where he worked for a time under Curio Cagliari.

By 1616, Turchi travels to Rome participating in the fresco decoration (Gathering of Manna) of the Sala Regia of the Quirinal Palace, and painting a Christ, Magdalen, and angels for cardinal Scipione Borghese.^[1] In competition with Andrea Sacchi and Pietro da Cortona, he painted some pictures in the church of La Concezione. In 1619, he sends an altarpiece of the 40 martyrs for the Chapel of the Innocents in Santo Stefano of Verona, to hang next to paintings by Pasquale Ottino and Marcantonio Bassetti.He also painted a Flight into Egypt for San Romualdo; a Holy Family for S. Lorenzo in Lucina; and a S. Carlo Borromeo in S. Salvatore in Lauro. He was much employed on cabinet pictures, representing historical subjects, which he frequently painted on black marble. His two pupils, Giovanni Ceschini and Giovanni Battista Rossi, practiced in Verona, the former painting copies of his master's works, which were often taken for originals.

For the Count Giangiacomo Giusti, in 1620 he paints an Allegory of Fame between Mercury and Pallas Athena and three canvases of Faith, Hope, and Charity. In 1621 executes for French cardinal François de Sourdis the Resurrection of Christ, now in the cathedral of Sant'Andrea of Bordeaux, and sends the Adoration of the Magi for the Gherardini family in Verona. By 1621, he had completed a painting of San Carlo Borromeo and the Madonna in Glory for San Salvatore in Lauro in Rome. Documents from 1629, indicate Turchi was paid 110 scudi for painting St. Anthony of Padua for the Farnese Palace at Caprarola. In 1632, an inventory of the Palazzo Mattei di Giove, records a Saint Marta and Maria Madalena and a Samaritan Women by Turchi. There is a painting titled Hope by Turchi in the Detroit Institute of Art.

His sister married Giacinto Gimignani. In 1623, Turchi married Lucia San Giuliano. In 1637, with the sponsorship of the cardinal Francesco Barberini, he became Principe or director of the Accademia di San Luca. In 1638, he joined the Pontifical Accademia dei Virtuosi of the Pantheon. He died in Rome.

References

1. ^ now in Galleria Borghese

• Biography, see Alessandro Turchi 1578-1649 detto l'Orbetto.
• Bryan, Michael (1889). Walter Armstrong & Robert Edmund Graves. ed. Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical (Volume II: L-Z). York St. #4, Covent Garden, London; Original from Fogg Library, Digitized May 18, 2007: George Bell and Sons. pp. page 591. http://books.google.com/books?id=K2cCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=Michael+Bryan+Painters+Engravers#PPP7,M1. 

Gallery

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  Christ and Adulterous Woman

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  Mystical Marriage of St Catherine (Louvre)

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  Samson and Delilah (?) (Kunsthistorisches Museum)

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  Agatha of Sicily

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  Cephalus and Procris

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  Vision of Christ of the Passion

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  Death of Cleopatra