1656 -1746 · Late Roman Baroque, Devotional Classicism and Portrait

Caressing light, measured gestures, pearly skin tones and intimate emotion make Francesco Trevisani one of the most refined painters in Rome around 1700.

Francesco Trevisani was born in 1656 in Capodistria, then a territory of the Republic of Venice. He received initial training with Antonio Zanchi in Venice, where he learned dramatic chiaroscuro, warm color and the taste of great figures. Installed in Rome before 1678, he gradually adapted this Venetian heritage to the classical culture of the pontifical capital. The meeting with Carlo Maratta and his entourage guided him towards more ordered compositions, clearer light and contained religious expression. Trevisani benefited from powerful protectors, including Cardinal Flavio Chigi then Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. He painted altarpieces, decorative cycles, devotional images, mythological subjects and portraits for churches, palaces and an international clientele. His workshop received commissions from several European courts. The Sleep of the Child Jesus, produced at the beginning of the 18th century and offered by Ottoboni to Louis XIV, summarizes his art of sacred tenderness. The Sleeping Child is not only a maternal scene: the calm of the body announces the Passion, while the Virgin, the angels and the light construct a silent meditation. The Sleeping Child is not only a maternal scene: the calm of the body announces the Passion, while the Virgin, the angels and the light construct a silent meditation. The palette, softened by pearly passages, retains Venetian richness without losing the Roman clarity of the drawing. Trevisani is also sought after as a portraitist; faces attentive, hands and fabrics combine social rank and psychological presence. He participated in the great Roman academies and trained several students. Died in Rome in 1746, almost in his nineties, he went through the last decades of the Baroque and prepared with his luminous elegance the sensitivity of the 18th century. The "Francesco Trevisani" selection notably compares The Sleep of the Child Jesus. His reading favors space.

Trevisani transforms the baroque into confidence: the light no longer proclaims the miracle, it gently approaches the face, the hand and the sleeping body.