- NameAntonio Amorosi
- Sexmale
- Nationality/DatesItalian, born 1660, dead 1736
BiographyAntonio Mercurio Amorosi was long confused
with the Danish artist Eberhard Keil, active in
Rome in the mid 17th century with the pseudonymous
Monsù Bernardo. In the 1930s Roberto
Longhi identified their distinct artistic personalities.
According to the biographer Lione Pascoli,
Amorosi was born in Communanza in the
Marches in 1660. He later moved to Rome, where
in 1676 he became an apprentice of his countryman
Giuseppe Ghezzi. The only known work
from this first period is the Virgin of Loreto in
the church of Santa Caterina in Communanza,
which Amorosi painted together with Ghezzi’s
son Pier Leone. Amorosi’s first known independent
work is the Portrait of Filippo Ricci
(Weitzner Collection, New York), signed and
dated 1690. The painting shows great similarities
to his master’s work. Amorosi received public
commissions, like the frescoes in the Palazzo Comunale
in Civitavecchia (now lost), and ecclesiastical
work, including the altarpiece for the church
of Santa Maria della Morte in the same city, but
is most famous for his genre scenes, bambocciate,
and for his paintings of youth and children. These
works brought Amorosi considerable renown,
as the commission for twelve bambocciate from
the Duke of Uceda, in the early years of the 18th
century, indicates. Amorosi was attracted to a
circle of non-academic genre, battle-scene and
landscape painters in Rome and in 1715 this group
received the important commission to paint genre
scenes in the Palazzo Ruspoli in Rome (now lost).
According to Pascoli, Amorosi was also a skilful
copyist and restorer.