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Artist

Mattia Preti

Year
Taverna 1613 - 1699 Valletta
Price range
250,000 – 3,000,000 USD
Mattia Preti, known as ‘Il Cavalier Calabrese’ was an important Italian Baroque painter, draughtsman and frescoist.

Preti’s mature paintings display a highly personal combination of Caravaggesque realism with the luminosity and theatricality of Venetian painting. His style often oscillated between the two, perhaps depending on the needs of his patrons. Preti was a prolific artist who is estimated to have produced about seven hundred paintings throughout his career in Rome, Naples and Malta.

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Selected artworks
Market

Top 3 auction prices

1,298,803 $
1989
1,460,000 $
2020
2,169,000 $
2008

Details

The sales are: Christie’s London – 8 Dec 1989 lot 133 (825,000 GBP), Sotheby’s New York – 29 Jan 2020 lot 50, and Sotheby’s New York 24 Jan 2008 lot 104.
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From our journal
Notable exhibitions

Rome, Palazzo Barberini, Il trionfo dei sensi : nuova luce su Mattia e Gregorio Preti, 22 February – 16 June 2019. Curated by Alessandro Cosma and Yuri Primarosa.

Rome, Galleria Corsini, Mattia Preti : un giovane nella Roma dopo Caravaggio, 25 October 2015 – 18 January 2016. Curated by Giorgio Leone.

Venaria Reale, Reggia di Venaria Reale, Il cavalier calabrese Mattia Preti : tra Caravaggio e Luca Giordano, 16 May – 15 September 2013. Curated by Vittorio Sgarbi and Keith Sciberras.

Taverna, Museo Civico, Mattia Preti : 1613-2013 : dalla Fede e Umanità, 24 February – 21 April 2013; travelled to Valletta, Palazzo Magistrale, 3 May – 7 July 2013. Curated by Giuseppe Valentino and Sandro Debono.

Williamsburg, Muscarelle Museum of Art, A Brush with Passion : Mattia Preti (1613-1699), 9 February – 14 April 2013. Curated by John T. Spike.

Naples, Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Mattia Preti: tra Roma, Napoli e Malta, 28 March – 6 June 1999. Curated by Nicola Spinoza.

Rende, Museo Civico, Mattia Preti : e l’Ordine di San Giovanni tra Calabria e Malta, 26 March – 26 May 1999. Curated by John T. Spike.

 

Books on Mattia Preti

Keith Sciberras, Caravaggio to Mattia Preti: Baroque Painting in Malta, 2015.

Sandro Debono and Giuseppe Valentino, Mattia Preti: Faith and Humanity, Valletta, 2013.

Keith Sciberras and Vittorio Sgarbi, Il Cavalier Calabrese: Mattia Preti tra Caravaggio e Luca Giordano, Milano 2013.

John T. Spike, Michèle K. Spike, Mattia Preti: Catalogo ragionato dei ipiniti – Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Taverna, 1999.

John T. Spike and Giuseppe Valentino, Mattia e Gregorio Preti a Taverna: Catalogo complete delle opera – Catalogue Raisonné of their Paintings in Taverna, Taverna, 1997.

Erminia Corace, ed., Mattia Preti, Rome, 1989.

Clovis Whitfield and Jane Martineau, eds., Painting in Naples, 1606–1705: From Caravaggio to Giordano, exh. cat. London, 1982.

John T. Spike, Italian Baroque Paintings from New York Private Collections, exh. cat. Princeton, 1980.

Lione Pascoli, Vite de̓ pittori, scultori, ed architetti moderni, 1730/36, reprint Perguia, 1992.

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