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PRETI, Mattia
(b. 1613, Taverna Calabria, d. 1699, La Valleta)
Mattia Preti (also called Il Cavaliere Calabrese) was an Italian
Baroque painter. He came from Taverna in Calabria (hence his nickname)
and his prolific career took him to many different parts of Italy (and
according to an early biographer to Spain and Flanders). Mattia Preti
left Calabria to join his brother Gregorio, also a painter, in Rome. He
met with such outstanding success that within a short time he had become
one of the most authoritative southern painters of the second half of
the seventeenth century.
Preti was fortunate to enjoy a long career and have a considerable
painteric output. His paintings, representative of the exuberant late
Baroque style, are held by many great museums, including important
collections in Naples, Valletta, and in his hometown of Taverna. In the
Uffizi Gallery is his allegorical piece, Vanity. |
