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Giuseppe Maria Crespi

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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GIUSEPPE MARIA CRESPI (1665-1747), Italian painter, called "Lo Spagnuolo" from his fondness for rich apparel,. was born at Bologna, and was trained under Angelo Toni, Domenico Canuti and Carlo Cignani. He then went through a course of copying from Correggio and Barocci; this he followed. up with a journey to Venice for the sake of Titian and Paul Veronese; and late in life he proclaimed himself a follower of Guercino and Pietro da Cortona. He was a good colourist and a facile executant, and was wont to employ the camera obscura with great success in the treatment of light and shadow; but he was careless and unconscientious. He was a clever portraitpainter and a brilliant caricaturist; and his etchings after Rembrandt and Salvator are in some demand. His greatest work, a "Massacre of the Innocents," is at Bologna; but the Dresden gallery possesses twelve examples of him, among which is his celebrated series of the Seven Sacraments.