Ubaldo Gandolfi

Late-Baroque painter Ubaldo Gandolfi was locally famous in Bologna in the mid 18th century but was never a cemented name in a wider range of art history. One of the last true painters of the Bolognese School—which eschewed nontraditional styles—Gandolfi cherished and executed highly academic figure paintings, mostly of religious scenes. Later in his career, Gandolfi’s works became more Neoclassical, meaning they depicted mythological narratives with simplified figures and symmetrical compositions. Gandolfi died in 1781 in Ravenna, a city close to Bologna. Although he is rarely mentioned in art history textbooks, his work is represented at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Louvre, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.