Federiko Benković

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Federiko Benković (1667-1753) was a prominent Croatian-Italian late Baroque painter. Born from a Croatian family, he is also known as 'Federico or Federigo Bencovich'.

His birthplace is unknown, either in Omiš, Šibenik, the island Brač, or possibly Verona or Venice. He was educated in Bologna. He was ranked among the greatest Schiavones of the period, including other artists like Juraj Culinovic, Francesco and Lorenzo Laurana-Vranjanin, and Julije Klović.

Benković studied with the Baroque painter Carlo Cignani, helping him in 1706 to paint St. Mary’s Assumption on the dome of the Forlì cathedral. Before that, in 1705, Juno on the clouds, his earliest and best-known painting was painted. Another influence was his work in the workshop of Giuseppe Maria Crespi. In 1710 Benković painted the altarpiece with the images of St. Andrew on the cross surrounded by St. Bartholomew, St. Carolus Borromei, St. Lucia, and St. Apollonia for the church of Madonna del Piombo in Bologna, later transferred to the parish church Senonches near Chartres in France. This painting, like some others which disappeared till the year 1715, later to have got lost, played a key role in the creation of the painter’s reputation as a key figures of Venetian painting of his time. He also influenced on the style of the young Giambatista Tiepolo.

In the course of the year 1715, Benković painted four large canvases, his key works, painted to the order of Prince Lothar Franz Schönborn for his gallery in the castle of Pommersfeldern: Apollo and Marcia, Hagar and Ishmael in the desert, Iphigenia’s sacrifice and Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. These works are exceptional even within the figurative culture of that time, as one of the greatest authorities and connoisseurs of the Baroque Venetian painting, Rodolfo Palluchini, had written. The picture Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, nowadays kept in the Strossmayer gallery, is probably the painting that disappeared from the castle of Pommersfeldern at the beginning of the 19th century. Until that time, the painting was attributed to Piazzeta. “The Association of friends of Strossmayer’s gallery” bought the painting at a London auction in 1936. After his death, Benković himself and his work gradually fell into oblivion. His paintings used to be attributed to Piazzeta, Cignani, amongst others and it was only at the beginning of the 20th century that his work began to be studied carefully and the importance of his role in the painting of the Late Baroque in Venice, south Germany and Austria was recognized.