Antonio Balestra (Verona, 1666-1740).
Painter and engraver, in 1690 he moved from Verona, his hometown, to Rome, where he became a student of Carlo Maratta, who was in turn a student of Andrea Sacchi. The artist immediately moved on two fronts: the ecclesial and the public commissions, becoming known and appreciated by both parties both in Venice and Verona.
In 1725 he also became a member of the Roman Academy of San Luca.
Subsequently, his notoriety in Venice was mainly recognized for the Annunciation of the church of the Scalzi, which reveals an extraordinary compositional ability and a new use of color in the Rococo style.
Among his major works, between 1717 and 1718, there is the work in Padua for the church of Santa Giustina, where the two canvases depicting the Martyrdom of Saints Cosma and Damiano are preserved, considered his greatest masterpiece for the grandeur and theatricality of the scene. His style is composed and cold, and therefore independent of the figurative culture that was taking shape between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. After the Roman and Venetian period, Balestra returned to Verona, where he worked mainly for ecclesiastical commissions.
His last work, before his death in 1740, was the fresco decoration for the villa of his friend Alessandro Pompei.
"'Diana, with her greyhounds and a landscape background with two nymphs who, in the background, on the right, bathe in a pond' and 'The sleeping hunter Endymion with cherubs in a landscape' are works by the painter Antonio Balestra (Verona, 1666 - 1970), taken from Ovid's "Metamorphoses"."
Maurizio MARINI, La pittura del Settecento veneto, Udine, 1982
Dimensions: H147xL198 cm each.
Technique: oil on canvas
