Francesco Zuccarelli - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

FRANCESCO ZUCCARELLI (1702-1788), Italian painter, was born at Pitigliano in Tuscany, and studied in Rome under Onesi, Morandi, and Nelli. At Rome, and later in Venice, he became famous as one of the best landscape painters of the classicizing 18th century. Having visited England on a previous occasion, he was induced by some patrons to return thither in 1752, remaining until 1773, when he settled in Florence, dying there in 1788. Zuccarelli, who was one of the foundation members of the Royal Academy, enjoyed the patronage of royalty and of many wealthy English collectors, for whom he executed his principal works - generally landscapes with classic ruins and small figures. A large number of them are at Windsor Castle, and of the seven examples which formed part of the John Samuel collection two are now at the National Gallery. The royal palace in Venice contains as many as twenty-one, and the academy four. Others are at the Vienna Gallery and at the Louvre in Paris. His work was very unequal, but at his best he rivals the leading landscape painters of his time. His paintings often bear a mark representing a pumpkin, a pictorial representation of his name, which signifies "little pumpkin."