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BENEDETTO LUTI
Florence 1666 ~ 1724 Rome
Benedetto Luti acquired
his training in the medium of pastel in Florence, where the French tradition of the pastel portrait was made fashionable by Cosimo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Also, Luti would have known Federico Barocci's chalk and
pastel heads in the grand-ducal collection. When Luti moved to Rome, he became not only a well-known artist through the patronage of Cosimo III but also one of the principal collectors and art dealers in the city.
He devised the idea of producing vivid studies of heads and bust-length figures, in pastel, for the 'trade'. These are important for being among the first of their type to be created as independent works of art
rather than as studies for paintings or frescoes. They form part of Luti's contribution to the Roman rococo style and anticipate the pastel heads of the Venetian artist, Rosalba Carriera, by a decade.1
1. Edgar Peters Bowron, 'Benedetto Luti's Pastels and Coloured Chalk Drawings', Apollo, 1980, pp. 440 – 447.
I should very much like to thank Gian Carlo Sestieri for confirming this attribution.
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