About the Artist

Alessandro Magnasco (1667 Genoa-1749 Genoa) began his studies as a pupil of his father, the painter Stefano Magnasco, and also studied with Valerio Castello. After his father's death he continued his training with Filippo Abbiati in Milan, and begining in 1703, Magnasco worked in Florence in the service of the Frand Duke Ferdinando de Medici (1663-1731). In 1709 he worked in Milan for the influential Borromeo and Visconti Families, among others, before returning to Genoa in 1735. Magnasco specialized in landscpaes and capriccio like religious genre paintings in which he depicted scenes from the lives of monks, beggars and vagabonds with imaginative, humorous and critical illusions. The artist's works include The interogation in the Prison, c. 1705, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; The Theft in a Church, 1731, Palace of the Archbishop, Milan; and Franciscan Monk Dining in a Refectory, c. 1735, Museo Civico, Bassano de Grappa.