Luca Giordano - vendere e comprare opere
(known as ‘Fa Presto’)
18 October 1634, Naples (Italy) - 12 January 1705, Naples (Italy)
Luca Giordano was an Italian painter and etcher of the Baroque period.
His father, the painter Antonio Giordano, discovered his son’s artistic talent early on and with the support of the Viceroy of Naples, enabled him to receive instruction from Jusepe de Ribera. His endless motivation and rapid working method earned him the nickname ‘Fa Presto’ (eng. “fast worker”). Study trips took the young painter to important Italian cities such as Parma and Venice. In Rome, he became a pupil of Pietro da Cortona. The stylistic influences he picked up there had a long-lasting impact on his creative activity. In 1682, a series of commissions for fresco cycles took him to Florence where, among other projects, he decorated the Corsini Chapel of Santa Maria del Carmine, the Biblioteca Riccardiana and the long gallery of the Palazzo Riccardi. Thanks to his extraordinary achievements as an artist, a special honour was bestowed on Giordano: in 1692 Charles II appointed him Spanish Court Painter, and he remained in this office for a total of ten years, until the king’s death. After returning to his native city, Giordano painted the ceiling of the Cappella del Tesoro in San Martino in the last three years of his life.
On 30 April 2019, his painting St Peter healing St Agatha fetched a price of €149,700 at an old masters auction in Dorotheum.