Francesco Maffei

Who was Francesco Maffei?

Francesco Maffei was an Italian painter, active in the Baroque style.

He probably trained in his birthplace of Vicenza with his father, and painted mostly in the towns of the Veneto. He died in Padua.

He is noted for his somewhat provincial stylistic quirks, combining the decorative manner of baroque with visual distortions and nervous brush strokes. His figures often glimmer with imprecise borders; a style which would characterize also the pittura de tocco e di macchia of the following decades and century. Representatives of this manner came from diverse regions of Europe, and worked in diverse styles, including Ricci, Carpioni, Magnasco, and later Francesco Guardi.

The canvases are often crowded with people and vigorous action. He is known for paintings in Ca Rezzonico in Venice, the Palazzo del Podesta in Vicenza, and in the Church of Santa Maria del Soccorso in Rovigo. He also painted in the Oratory of San Nicola da Tolentino in Vicenza. He was trained under the Mannerist painter, Alessandro Maganza, yet was influenced by a variety of painters, including Veronese, Jacopo Bassano, Tintoretto, and Magnasco. He is known to have traveled briefly to Venice in 1638, where he would have encountered the then brash new baroque painterly style of Liss, Strozzi, and Fetti. Maffei left Vicenza in 1657 and settled in Padua, where he died of the plague. He influenced a variety of painters, including Andrea Celesti and Antonio Bellucci, a mentor of Sebastiano Ricci.