By Anne Leader
Sicilian painter Pietro Novelli died on 27 August 1647 in Palermo. Novelli trained with his father in Monreale and continued his studies in Palermo where he came to know the work of Dutch painter Anthony Van Dyck, who visited the city in 1624. Novelli also traveled to Rome and Naples in the 1620s where he was exposed to Renaissance masters and Baroque contemporaries, including Giovanni Lanfranco and Jusepe de Ribera. Primarily a painter of religious scenes, Novelli is recognized today as Sicily’s most important artist of the seventeenth century.
Reference: Vincenzo Pacelli. “Novelli, Pietro.” Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press.
Further reading: Pietro Novelli il Monrealese by Guido di Stefano (1989)
Cain and Abel, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica
David with the Head of Goliath, 1630s, Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 72.PA.16
Circle of Pietro Novelli, The Agony in the Garden, ca. 1640, Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 94.GA.96