Giovanni Volpato

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Giovanni Volpato (1735-1803) was an Italian engraver of the 18th century.

He received his first training from his mother, an embroiderer, and then studied under Giovanni Antonio Remondini. While still young, however, he went to Venice, where he received some instruction from Wagner and Bartolozzi, and engraved several plates after Piazzetta, Mariotto, Amiconi, Zuccarelli, Marco Ricci,and others. He worked some time for the Duke of Parma, until a plate from the Monument of Algarotti at Pisa brought him wider notice. His patron, Girolamo Zulian, in 1771 recommended him to move to Rome, where he gained fame for his engravings of Raphael paintings and frescoes. He also established a porcelain factory that made ceramic replicas of Greco-Roman originals to satisfy the longing for antique art during the Neoclassic period. One of his pupils was his son in law, Raffaello Morghen. In Gavin Hamilton employed him to engrave several plates for his Schola Itálica Picturae; and he was the principal artist employed on the well-known set of colored prints from the works of Raphael in the Vatican. In Rome he founded a school of engraving, in which several excellent artists received their education. He died in Rome.

Among his plates for Gavin Hamilton are:

Marriage of Alexander and Roxana.
The four Sibyls; after Raphael.
Perseus and Andromeda; after Polidoro da Caravaggio
Modesty ami Vanity; after Leonardo da Vinci.
Christ praying at the Mount; after Correggio.
Feast in the house of Simon; after Paolo Veronese
The Marriage of Cana; after Tintoretto.
Gamblers after Michelangelo da Caravaggio.

[edit] References

Bryan, Michael (1889). in Walter Armstrong & Robert Edmund Graves: Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical (Volume II L-Z). York St. #4, Covent Garden, London; Original from Fogg Library, Digitized May 18, 2007: George Bell and Sons, pages 681-682.