Dancing into battle - two paintings by Cesare Fracanzano

 

Two fighters, circa 1637.

The artist has signed his name on the scrap of paper.

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The Wrestlers, circa 1640s.

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Cesare Fracanzano (9 October 1605, Bisceglie - 1651, Barletta), Neapolitan painter, native of Apulia. The son of a nobleman originally from Verona - himself a mannerist painter - he moved to Naples in 1622 along with his younger brother, Francesco, who was a painter as well. A student of José de Ribera - known to his contemporaries as Lo Spagnoletto - Fracanzano's pictorial style was based on that of his teacher, but also that of Tintoretto, the Carracci brothers, and Guido Reni. After four years of apprenticeship and work in Naples, he returned to Apulia in 1626, settling in Barletta where he married. He carried out commissions there for the church and the nobility, only leaving to honor commitments in other parts of the region, as well as in Naples and Rome. His son, Michelangelo Fracanzano, was also a painter, and died in France about 1685.