Birth of Antonio Cifrondi

Artist left us accurate images of everyday 17th century life

Baroque artist Antonio Cifrondi was born on 11 June 1655 in Clusone,  just north of Bergamo.

Artist Antonio Cifrondi's self-portrait

He has become known for his religious works and his genre paintings of old men and women and of people at work, in which he depicts their clothing in great detail.

Much of his work is on display in art galleries and churches throughout the region of Lombardy.

His self-portrait can be seen in the church of Sant’Alessandro della Croce in Via Pignolo in the lower town. One of his most acclaimed works, a painting of An Old Woman with a Stick, can be seen at the Civic Museum of Art and History in Brescia.

Cifrondi was born into a poor family in Clusone, the main town in the Valle Seriana to the north east of Bergamo.

After training as a painter locally he moved to Bologna, and then to Turin and to Rome, where he stayed for about five years. He also worked briefly at the Palace of Versailles near Paris.

He came back to live in the Bergamo area in the 1680s, after which he painted many of his major works. He lived for the last years of his life in a convent near Brescia, where he died in 1730.

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