Pietro Bettelini

Portrait of Nancy Storace, now in the library of the Goethe University Frankfurt.

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

Life

Bettelini was born in Caslano, and began studying his art very young. 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

He is particularly happy in his transcripts of light and elegant forms, and enters with much taste and spirit into the subject he copies. He does not aim at producing brilliant effects, but exercises his graver with care and delicacy, corresponding with the style of the original picture. In those of a sombre or forcible character he is not equally successful. He 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, exhibits all the beauties of the original, and may be quoted, not only as his masterpiece, but also among the finest examples of art. His works include:

He worked with Giuseppe Bortignoni the Younger in engraving ceiling decorations from the Vatican.[1] He died in Rome, aged 66.

References

  1. ↑ Storia di Bassano: e del suo territorio by Ottoni Brentani, page 72.

This article incorporates text from the article "BETTELINI, Pietro" in Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers by Michael Bryan, edited by Robert Edmund Graves and Sir Walter Armstrong, an 1886–1889 publication now in the public domain.


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