Pietro Bettelini

Portrait of Nancy Storace by Pietro Bettelini, now in the library of the Goethe University Frankfurt

Tableau of Italian composers, c. 1790

Pietro Bettelini (6 September 1763 – 27 September 1829) was a Swiss engraver.

Life

Bettelini was born in Caslano, and began studying art at a young age. He received instruction from Gandolfi and Bartolozzi; but in his subsequent works he inclined more to the style of Raphael Morghen. He died at Rome in 1828.

Works

Bettelini was held in high estimation by Thorwaldsen, who employed him to engrave some of his finest works, both figures and bassi-rilievi. His engraving of the Entombment, by Andrea del Sarto, in the Florence Gallery is considered among his finest examples of art. His works include:

• Entombment; after Andrea del Sarto.
• Madonna col devoto; after the painting by Correggio, in the possession of the King of Bavaria.
• Ecce Homo; after Correggio.
• St. John; after Domenichino.
• Sibylla Persica; after Guercino.
• Ascension of the Virgin; after Guido.
• Madonna and sleeping Infant; after Raphael.
• Judgment of Solomon; after the same.
• Magdalene; after Schidone.
• Maria div. Sapientiae; after Titian.
• The Virgin Mary reading a book; after the same.
• Portrait of Galileo.
• Portrait of Machiavelli.
• Portrait of Poliziano.

He worked with Giuseppe Bortignoni the Younger in engraving ceiling decorations from the Vatican.

References

Attribution:

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bryan, Michael (1886). "Bettelini, Pietro". In Graves, Robert Edmund (ed.). Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers (A–K). Vol. I (3rd ed.). London: George Bell & Sons.