GIUSEPPE MARIA

CRESPI (166 1747)  , Italian painter, called " Lo Spagnuolo " from his fondness for rich apparel, was born at Bologna, and was trained under Angelo Toni, Domenico Canuti and Carlo Cignani . He then went through a course of copying from Correggio and Barocci; this he followed up with a journey to Venice for the sake of Titian and Paul Veronese; and late in life he proclaimed himself a follower of Guercino and Pietro da Cortona . He was a good colourist and a facile executant, and was wont to employ the camera obscura with great success in the treatment of light and shadow; but he was careless and unconscientious . He was a clever portrait-painter and a brilliant caricaturist; and his etchings after Rembrandt and Salvator are in some demand . His greatest work, a " Massacre of the Innocents," is at Bologna; but the Dresden gallery possesses twelve examples of him, among which is his celebrated series of the Seven Sacraments .