Carlo Dolci

1616-1686

Carlo Dolci spent his entire career in Florence, where he was born in 1616 to a family of painters. Apprenticed young to Jacopo Vignali, he developed a meticulous technique that made him famous for small-scale religious paintings of extraordinary finish. His painstaking method—he could spend weeks on a single foot—made him unsuited to large frescoes, but perfectly suited to the intimate devotional works that brought him steady patronage from the Medici and throughout Italy. He painted the same subjects repeatedly in multiple versions, especially tender renderings of the Virgin and saints. Though known for his piety, Dolci was said to have fallen into depression in 1682 after watching Luca Giordano complete in five hours what would have taken him months. He died in Florence in 1686, having scarcely left the city in his life.