Francesco Simonini Parma 1686 - 1753 Florence or Venice

Simonini enjoyed great fame during his lifetime as a painter of battles and landscape. From 1733 to 1745 he worked as a painter, draughtsman and advisor to Johann Mathias, Graf von der Schulenberg, the commander of the Venetian army against the Turks. Simonini's military scenes display a detail rare among his contemporaries, the result of his participating in several of Schulenberg's campaigns. They are also distinguished by their interest in the less glamorous aspects of military life, which he clearly observed closely and at first hand. His distinctive style, with its rapid brushwork and vivid colours, waa evidently formed under the influence of his Venetian contemporaries, in particular the vedutista Marco Ricci.