Niccòlo Cassana

Venice, 1659 - 1713, London

BiographyCassana, Niccolò
(b Venice, 1659; d London, 1714).
Italian painter. He was apprenticed to his father, the Genoese painter Giovanni Francesco Cassana (1611–90), and from him learnt to paint in the tenebrist style. In 1684 he was enrolled in the guild of Venetian painters. After the death of Giusto Suttermans (1681), the official portraitist of the Medici court, Cassana tried to win favour by sending a Self-portrait (1683) to Florence to form part of the collection of self-portraits in the Uffizi. Yet this work, the earliest example of his prolific output as a portrait painter, was rejected and relegated to the gallery’s storeroom (see Chiarini). Few of his numerous early portraits for the Venetian nobility and clergy survive; some are known through engravings. Among those that have been identified are those of a Notary (Venice, Doge’s Pal.), Giambattista Doria (Venice, Correr) and various others (Lovere, Gal. Accad. B.A. Tadini; Genoa, Pal. Rosso).

In 1688 Grand Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici met Cassana in the course of a visit to Venice (see MEDICI, DE’, (28)). They formed a sincere and long-lasting friendship. Cassana visited Florence many times and painted many portraits for the Medici court, including Cosimo III, his daughter Anna Maria Luisa (c. 1690), Ferdinando and his wife Violante Beatrice of Bavaria and Cardinal Francesco Maria de’ Medici (all Florence, Uffizi). In addition to official portraiture Cassana also painted more naturalistic and modest portraits, for example the portraits of Alberto Tortelli and Giuliano Baldassarini (both Florence, Uffizi), in which Ferdinando’s much admired and talented gamekeepers are depicted in relaxed, conversational poses. The Portrait of a Cook (1707), in which the theme and freedom of handling are reminiscent of Bernardo Strozzi, belongs to the same series as the Dwarf (Florence, Pitti); both of these are enlivened by a vivid realism, enhanced by the presence of animals and objects. Cassana conducted a long and frequent correspondence with Ferdinando (Venice, Bib. N. Marciana), which reveals that he acted as an agent of the Medici court for the purchase of works of art and also as a copyist; his copy of Salvator Rosa’s Oath of Catiline (untraced) is in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence. Cassana must have been less enthusiastic about his work as restorer, for he completed and touched up the ruined or missing parts of paintings in a way that seems excessively offhand.

According to Ratti (1769), Cassana also produced history paintings. His religious pictures include a copy of Titian’s St Peter Martyr, painted to replace that work (destr.) in SS Giovanni e Paolo, Venice (in situ). His only surviving mythological work is a Bacchanal (St Petersburg, Hermitage), a large work in which he moved away from the tenebrist style towards the classicism of Nicolas Poussin and Sebastiano Ricci. In 1709, during the royal visit to Venice, Cassana painted portraits of Frederick IV, King of Denmark (untraced) and the court dignitary Ivor Rosenkranz (Hillerød, Frederiksborg Slot). Guarienti’s revision of Orlandi states that after sending two portraits to England (untraced) Cassana was summoned by Queen Anne and died in London during that visit.

Bibliography

DBI [with bibliog. to 1978]

P. A. Orlandi: Abecedario pittorico (Bologna, 1704); rev. P. M. Guarienti (Venice, 1753) ( OPENURL )

C. G. Ratti: Delle vite de’ pittori scultori ed architetti genovesi, ii (Genoa, 1769), pp. 14–16 ( OPENURL )

G. Fogolari: ‘Lettere pittoriche del Gran Principe Ferdinando di Toscana a Niccolò Cassana (1698–1709)’, Riv. Reale Ist. Archeol. & Stor. A., vi (1937), pp. 145–86 ( OPENURL )

N. Ivanoff: ‘Ritratti dell’Avogaria’, A. Ven., viii (1954), p. 278 ( OPENURL )

M. Chiarini: ‘Niccolò Cassana, Portrait Painter of the Florentine Court’, Apollo, c (1974), pp. 234–9 ( OPENURL )

F. Zava Bocazzi: ‘Niccolò Cassana a Venezia’, Atti Ist. Ven. Sci., Lett. & A., cxxxviii (1978–9), pp. 611–34 ( OPENURL )

R. Pallucchini: La pittura veneziana del seicento (Milan, 1981), pp. 309–11 ( OPENURL )

Marco Carminati. "Cassana, Niccolò." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 4 Oct. 2013. .

Person TypeIndividual

Last Updated8/7/24

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