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(1) Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione [il Grechetto]
(b Genoa, bapt 23 March 1609; d Mantua, 5 May 1664). Painter, printmaker and draughtsman. Most of his works are scenes of the journeys of the patriarchs (e.g. Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob), drawn from the book of Genesis and filled with animals and still-life detail. His oeuvre also, however, includes many spectacular mythological and religious compositions set in expansive landscapes, and for these he found inspiration in Classical mythology, ancient history, Aesop’s Fables, 16th-century Italian literature and the lives of the saints. Early biographers claim that he was also a prolific portrait painter, but few examples, save the so-called portrait of Gianlorenzo Bernini (c. 1648–50; Genoa, Pal. Bianco), have been conclusively identified. His surviving subjects reveal his interest in magic and metamorphosis and in philosophical questions such as the frailty of human life, the inevitability of death and the search for truth. He is celebrated for the virtuosity of his execution, most brilliantly revealed in his many pen-and-ink drawings, dry-brush oil sketches, etchings and monotypes (a printmaking technique invented by him).
Part of the Castiglione family
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