Carlo (or Carlino) Dolci (25 May 1616 – 17 January 1686) was an Italian Baroque painter active mainly in Florence, known for highly finished religious pictures, often repeated in many versions.

Biography

He was born in Florence, on his mother's side the grandson of a painter. He was precocious and apprenticed at a young age to Jacopo Vignali, and when only eleven years of age he attempted a whole figure of St John, and a head of the infant Christ, which received some approbation. Dolci was not prolific; "He would take weeks over a single foot", according to his biographer Baldinucci. His painstaking technique made him unsuited for large-scale fresco painting. He painted chiefly sacred subjects, and his works are generally small in scale, although he made a few life-size pictures. He often repeated the same composition in several versions, and his daughter, Agnese Dolci, also made copies of his works.

After attempting the whole figure of St John, and the head of the infant Christ, he painted a portrait of his mother, displaying a new and delicate style which brought him into notice. This procured him extensive employment at Florence (from which city he hardly ever moved) and in other parts of Italy.

Dolci was known for his piety. It is said that every year during Passion Week he painted a half-figure of the Savior wearing the Crown of Thorns. In 1682, when he saw Giordano—nicknamed "fa presto" (quick worker)—paint more in five hours than he could have completed in months, he fell into a depression.

Dolci's daughter, Agnese (died circa 1680), was also a well-known painter. Two of her paintings, Jesus took bread and blessed it and Maria and Child, were included in the 1905 book Women Painters of the World. Her "Consecration of the Bread and Wine" is in the Louvre. Dolci died in Florence in 1686. He was buried in his family tomb in the Basilica of the Santissima Annunziata, Florence.

Works

thumb|Saint Paul the Hermit, before 1648, [[National Museum, Warsaw|National Museum in Warsaw]]

The grand manner, vigorous coloration or luminosity, and dynamic emotion of the Bolognese-Roman Baroque are foreign to Dolci and to Baroque Florence. While he fits into a long tradition of prestigious official Florentine painting, Dolci appears constitutionally blind to the new aesthetic, shackled by the Florentine tradition that holds each drawn figure under a microscope of academicism. Wittkower describes him as the Florentine counterpart, in terms of devotional imagery, of the Roman Sassoferrato. Pilkington declared his touch "inexpressibly neat ... though he has often been censured for the excessive labour bestowed on his pictures, and for giving his carnations more of the appearance of ivory than the look of flesh", a flaw that had been already apparent in Agnolo Bronzino.

Among his best works are a St Sebastian; the Four Evangelists at Florence; Christ Breaking the Bread; the St Cecilia at the Organ; an Adoration of the Magi in the National Gallery, London; the St Catherine Reading and St Andrew praying before his Crucifixion (1646) in the Palazzo Pitti. He completed his portrait of Fra Ainolfo de' Bardi when he was only sixteen. He also painted a large altarpiece (1656) for the church of Sant' Andrea Cennano in Montevarchi. As was typical for Florentine painters, this was a painting about painting, and in it the Virgin of Soriano holds a miraculous and iconic painting of St Dominic.

<gallery widths="180" heights="180" perrow="4">

File:Carlo Dolci - Madonna and Child - 78.21 - Detroit Institute of Arts.jpg|Madonna and Child

File:Carlo Dolci (1616-1686) - Saint Christina of Bolsena - 108843 - National Trust.jpg|Saint Christina of Bolsena

File:Carlo Dolci - Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist - Google Art Project.jpg|Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist

File:Carlo Dolci - Allegorie der Aufrichtigkeit - GG 184 - Kunsthistorisches Museum.jpg|Allegory of Sincerity

File:Dolci David con la testa di Golia.jpg|David with Head of Goliath

File:Dolci San Matteo.PNG|St Matthew

File:Carlo Dolci - Madonna in Glory - Google Art Project.jpg|Madonna in Glory

File:Carlo Dolci (Florence 1616-86) - The Penitent Magdalen - RCIN 405546 - Royal Collection.jpg|The Penitent Magdalen

File:Carlo Dolci Salome Head of St John the Baptist.jpg|Salome and Head of St. John the Baptist

File:Carlo Dolci (1616-1686) - The Adoration of the Kings - NG6523 - National Gallery.jpg|The Adoration of the Kings

File:Dolci, Carlo - St. Catherine of Siena - Google Art Project.jpg|St Catherine of Siena

File:Carlo Dolci - Mater Dolorosa - Google Art Project.jpg|Mater Dolorosa

File:Carlo Dolci - The Trinity in Glory - 59.009 - Rhode Island School of Design Museum.jpg|The Trinity in Glory

File:Dolci Angelo annunciante.jpg|Annuciation Angel

File:Carlo Dolci (1616-1686) - The Penitent Magdalene - PD.4-1966 - Fitzwilliam Museum.jpg|The Penitent Magdalene

File:Carlo dolci, la carità, 1659, 03.jpg|Charity

File:Carlo Dolci (1616-1686) (after) - The Virgin and Child with Flowers - NG934 - National Gallery.jpg|The Virgin and Child with Flowers

File:Dolci Gesù fiori.jpg|Jesus with flowers (1663)

File:Dolci Fiori.jpg|Still life With Flowers

File:Dolci Crocifissione Andrea.jpg|Cruxifixion of St. Andrew

File:Carlo dolci, autoritratto, ante 1674 (gdsu) 02.jpg|Self portrait

File:Portrait of the Artist's Daughter Agata Dolci MET 1994.383.jpg|Portrait of the Artist's Daughter

File:Carlo Dolci 007.jpg|Vittoria della Rovere

File:Erzherzogin Claudia Felicitas.jpg|Claudia Felicitas of Austria

File:Carlo Dolci 008.jpg|Mattias de' Medici (1635)

File:Dolci Ainolfo de Bardi.jpg|Ainolfo de Bardi

File:Dolci Stefano Della Bella.jpg|Stefano della Bella

File:Thomas Baines Fitzwilliam Museum.jpg|Sir Thomas Baines

</gallery>

Footnotes

References

Attribution:

  • , engraved by William Ensom for The Easter Gift, 1832 with a poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon.
  • , engraved by S. Sangster for The Easter Gift, 1832 with a poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon.
  • , engraved by S. Sangster for The Easter Gift, 1832 with a poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon.