Stefano Tofanelli
{{Short description|Italian painter (1752–1812)}}
File:Stefano Tofanelli Family.jpgFile:Lucca.San Frediano14.JPG adores the Child by Stefano Tofanelli, Basilica of San Frediano]]
Stefano Tofanelli (September 26, 1752 – November 30, 1812) was an Italian painter during the Neoclassic period.
Life
He was born in Nave, near Lucca, and as a young boy of ten he was apprenticed with the painter Giuseppe Antonio Luchi, also called il Diecimino, who was a follower of the rococo style of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. With his fellow apprentice Bernardino Nocchi, then moved to Rome in 1768, where they both worked with Niccolò Lapiccola. In Rome with Nocchi he painted frescoes for the Palazzo of the Cardinal Dropanni.[https://books.google.com/books?id=xTIaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA116 Opere edite e inedite, Volumes 1-2] By marchese Cesare Lucchesini, Pages 116-118.
He was employed by engravers to make drawings for them, and, for example, for Volpato, he drew Parnassus by Raphael and a Sibyl and two Prophets by Michelangelo, Martyrdom by Guido Reni, Aurora and Day & Night by Guercino, and a Landscape by Claude Lorraine. For the artist Morghen, he completed a drawing of Poussin's Dance of the Hours, of Raphael's Jurisprudence, Transfiguration, and Miracle of Bolsena; and of Murillo's Magdalene. He also worked for Bettelini, Fontana, and Giovanni Folo. Tofanelli also painted altarpieces, portraits, and mythological scenes. In 1781 he opened an Art School in Rome, but afterwards returned to Lucca, and in 1802 became Professor of Drawing in the University of San Frediano. Among his pupils was Michele Ridolfi. He died in Lucca, aged 60.
References
- {{cite book| first=Michael| last=Bryan| year=1889| title=Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical |volume=II L-Z |editor=Walter Armstrong |editor2=Robert Edmund Graves |page=577 | publisher=George Bell and Sons|location=London |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K2cCAAAAYAAJ&q=Michael+Bryan+Painters+Engravers&pg=PA1}}
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Category:18th-century Italian painters
Category:Italian male painters
Category:19th-century Italian painters
Category:19th-century Italian male artists
Category:18th-century Italian male artists
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