Painter,
born in Florence, Italy, 25 May, 1616; died 17 January, 1686. He was the leading painter in Florence in the mid-17th century, and an
exponent of the restrained style of Late Baroque.
The grandson of a painter, he seems to have inherited a talent for
art. Dolci's artistic training began at age nine in Jacopo Vignali's studio in about 1625–26, where he learned to
combine Vignali's emotive approach with the elegant design and bright local color of the Florentine style. When only eleven years old he
attracted attention by the excellence of his work, notably a figure of St. John and a head of the Infant Jesus. The precocious youth made
a carefully-finished picture of his mother, and thereafter was kept busy filling the numerous commissions he received in Florence. He was
recognised as an excellent portraitist at the age of only sixteen.
He lived and worked throughout his life in Florence, which he left only in 1672 to go to
Innsbruck to work on a commission for a portrait of Claudia Felicita, the future wife of the Emperor Leopold I. Cosimo III’s Medici court
accorded him unreserved esteem and admiration, as did the English aristocracy on the Grand Tour, taking his reputation to England too. He
also made some exquisite still lives, but his fame is mainly linked to his vast production of sacred paintings.
Carlo Dolci was deeply devout even as a child, and intense
religious feeling was the guiding force behind his art. Many of his paintings were inscribed with prayers and intended to inspire
spiritual fervor in those who beheld them. His great piety is illustrated by the fact that during Easter Week, Dolci would paint only
scenes relating to Christ´s Passion. His painstaking technique and the meticulous care with which he rendered every detail of his
compositions brought him great patronage. Some of his works attained the status of venerated images and remain among the most popular
devotional pictures within Catholicism. His works are always
marked by superb technique. The works of Dolci are easily distinguishable by the delicacy
of the composition, soft, gentle, and tender expression of his faces,
and by an agreeable tint of colour, improved by judicious management of the
chiaroscuro, which gives his figures a striking relief; he affected the use of ultramarine, much
loaded in tint.
Among the best works of this master are the “St Sebastian”, the “Four Evangelists at
Florence; "Christ Breaking the Bread," in the marquess of Exeter's collection at Burleigh; the
"St Cecilia" in Dresden; an "Adoration of the Magi"; and especially "St Andrew praying before his Crucifixion," in the Pitti gallery, his
most important composition, painted in 1646; also several smaller pictures, which are highly valued, and occupy honorable places in the
richest galleries.
Dolci bestowed much labour on his pictures, working remarkably slow. It is said that in 1682,
when he saw Luca Giordano do more work in four or five hours than he could have done in as many months, he fell into a state of
hypochondria. This compelled him to relinquish his art, and soon brought him to the grave.
Dolci's works are not very numerous. He used pencil chiefly for sacred subjects, and generally
painted in a small size, although he made a few life-size pictures. He died in Florence, leaving a daughter named Agnese, who arrived at
some degree of excellence in copying the works of her father.
;)
