Carlo Francesco Nuvolone

Carlo Francesco Nuvolone was the leading painter in Milan in the middle of the seventeenth century, known for soft, graceful religious pictures and gentle portraits. His sweet faces and smooth modelling earned him the nickname “the Guido Reni of Lombardy”.

He was born in Milan, trained with his father Panfilo Nuvolone and then with Giovanni Battista Crespi at the Accademia Ambrosiana. He absorbed ideas from Procaccini, Cerano and van Dyck, and developed a lighter, more tender manner than many of his Lombard contemporaries. His Portrait of the Nuvolone Family is in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, and other works are in Piacenza, Baltimore and Dulwich Picture Gallery in London.

His Roman Charity and his portraits of ladies and gentlemen show how carefully he handled skin and fabric.