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Relatively little is known about the Italian Baroque painter Carlo Dolci. Exactly documented, however, are his date of birth and death. Dolci was born on 25 May 1616 in Florence and died at the age of 69 on 17 January 1686, also in Florence. Nothing is known about his parents. However, his maternal grandfather is also said to have been a painter. At the tender age of 9, the young Carlo came as a student to the studio of the painter Jacopo Vicnali. The famous Italian painter Agnolo di Cosimo Tori, called Bronzino is said to have been his great role model, whom he tried to emulate.
Carlo Dolci actually also became a very famous painter, though not a very prolific one, and not without controversy either. His biographer Fillipo Baldinucci recounted that he worked endlessly on a single painting, sometimes for several weeks on just one foot of his figure. This slowness naturally made him unsuited to the creation of large-format paintings and frescoes; with few exceptions, he tended to paint small-format pictures. The strong colours and luminosity that characterise many baroque paintings by great masters are also rather absent in Dolci's work. His pictures are very carefully and finely executed in delicate colors and with very dark backgrounds and often have a somewhat sentimental and sultry expression, just as his great role model Agnolo Bronzino also painted.
There are few clues to be found about Carlo Dolci's private life. He had a daughter named Agnese, who was also a talented painter and copied quite a few of his paintings. She died before her father in 1680. Carlo Dolci was a very pious man. He is said to have painted a picture of Jesus with a crown of thorns every year for the Passion. Also otherwise many of his paintings have religious motives and often he painted also one and the same motive several times. Among his most famous works are, in addition to various pictures of the Madonna, the paintings "Christ Breaking Bread", "St. Cecilia at the Organ", "The Adoration of the Magi", "Salome with the Head of John the Baptist", "Moses" and "David and Goliath". Also known is his self-portrait from 1674.
The last years of his life Carlo Dolci is said to have lived very withdrawn and to have been plagued by deep melancholy.
Relatively little is known about the Italian Baroque painter Carlo Dolci. Exactly documented, however, are his date of birth and death. Dolci was born on 25 May 1616 in Florence and died at the age of 69 on 17 January 1686, also in Florence. Nothing is known about his parents. However, his maternal grandfather is also said to have been a painter. At the tender age of 9, the young Carlo came as a student to the studio of the painter Jacopo Vicnali. The famous Italian painter Agnolo di Cosimo Tori, called Bronzino is said to have been his great role model, whom he tried to emulate.
Carlo Dolci actually also became a very famous painter, though not a very prolific one, and not without controversy either. His biographer Fillipo Baldinucci recounted that he worked endlessly on a single painting, sometimes for several weeks on just one foot of his figure. This slowness naturally made him unsuited to the creation of large-format paintings and frescoes; with few exceptions, he tended to paint small-format pictures. The strong colours and luminosity that characterise many baroque paintings by great masters are also rather absent in Dolci's work. His pictures are very carefully and finely executed in delicate colors and with very dark backgrounds and often have a somewhat sentimental and sultry expression, just as his great role model Agnolo Bronzino also painted.
There are few clues to be found about Carlo Dolci's private life. He had a daughter named Agnese, who was also a talented painter and copied quite a few of his paintings. She died before her father in 1680. Carlo Dolci was a very pious man. He is said to have painted a picture of Jesus with a crown of thorns every year for the Passion. Also otherwise many of his paintings have religious motives and often he painted also one and the same motive several times. Among his most famous works are, in addition to various pictures of the Madonna, the paintings "Christ Breaking Bread", "St. Cecilia at the Organ", "The Adoration of the Magi", "Salome with the Head of John the Baptist", "Moses" and "David and Goliath". Also known is his self-portrait from 1674.
The last years of his life Carlo Dolci is said to have lived very withdrawn and to have been plagued by deep melancholy.