Domenico Cunego (

Verona Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Northern Italy, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and the ...

,1727 –

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, 8 January 1803) was an Italian printmaker. Cunego was born in

. Having studied under the otherwise-unknown painter Francesco Ferrari, he began his artistic career as a painter, producing several works, all of which are now lost or untraceable. At age 18, however, he switched to

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ...

(a field in which he was possibly self-taught). He died in Rome. The engravings he made depicting

Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was insp ...

Sistine Chapel The Sistine Chapel (; la, Sacellum Sixtinum; it, Cappella Sistina ) is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the pope in Vatican City. Originally known as the ''Cappella Magna'' ('Great Chapel'), the chapel takes its name ...

ceiling, published in Gavin Hamilton's ''Schola Italica Picturae'' (1773), were an important source for the artists of his time. He is notable not only for reproducing paintings by his famous fellow-countrymen like

Guido Reni Guido Reni (; 4 November 1575 – 18 August 1642) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, although his works showed a classical manner, similar to Simon Vouet, Nicolas Poussin, and Philippe de Champaigne. He painted primarily religious ...

and Italian contemporaries such as

Antonio Balestra Antonio Balestra (12 August 1666 – 21 April 1740) was an Italian painter of the Rococo period. Biography Born in Verona, he first apprenticed there with Giovanni Zeffio. By 1690 he moved to Venice, where he worked for three years under Anto ...

Francesco Solimena Francesco Solimena (4 October 1657 – 3 April 1747) was a prolific Italian painter of the Baroque era, one of an established family of painters and draughtsmen. Biography Francesco Solimena was born in Canale di Serino in the province of ...

, and

Felice Boscaratti Felice Boscaratti (1721 in Verona – 1807) was an Italian painter. A pupil of the Rotari, he soon became established as a painter and teacher. He moved to Vicenza but also worked in his birthplace of Verona - his works at the latter include ...

, but also works by British artists in Italy catering to

Grand Tour The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tuto ...

ists. The latter included Gavin Hamilton's cycle of 6 works on the ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odysse ...

'' and David Allan's ''Origin of Portraiture''. His sons Luigi (b. 1750, d. 1823 ) and Giuseppe (b. 1760) were also engravers.Bryan, Michael (1903). ''Bryan's Dictionary of painters and engravers'', Vol. 1. A-C, p. 361; Note: "CUNEGO, Domenico, an Italian designer and engraver, was born at Verona in 1727, and died at Rome in 1794". (which contradicts the date of death set at 1803...)

Works

Admiralty office Whitehall 1760 D Cunego

*Illustrations for the 3-volume catalogue of Giacomo Muselli's coin collection, in collaboration with Dionigi Valesi (1752, 1756, 1760)
Internet Archive
*Views of Verona after drawings by T. Majeroni (1750s) *''St Thomas of Villanova'' (1757), after a painting by

(a frequent source for Cunego) *Some of the engravings for ''Ruins of the palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalato in Dalmatia.'' by

Robert Adam Robert Adam (3 July 17283 March 1792) was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him. With his o ...

, 1764

Notes

Sources

''Art Encyclopedia. The Concise Grove Dictionary of Art.''
*Bryan, Michael (1903). '' Bryan's dictionary of painters and engravers, Volume 1. A-C.'' ; G. Bell and sons {{DEFAULTSORT:Cunego 1724 births 1803 deaths Italian printmakers Artists from Verona 18th-century Italian artists