Crescenzio Onofri

ca. 1632 Rome – after 1712 Florence

Thanks to the research carried out by Marco Chiarini we know quite a lot about the biography and artistic career of the landscape painter and etcher Crescenzio Onofri. Born in Rome about 1632, the artist was the only pupil of Gaspar Dughet, to whose landscape style he remained true all his life. In 1689, Onofri was appointed court painter to Grand Duke Cosimo III de’ Medici in Florence, where he became a prolific landscape painter. Some of his works were the result of collaboration with figure painters such as Antonio Giusti, Pier Dandini, Francesco Petrucci and, not least, Alessandro Magnasco from Genoa, all of whom were responsible for providing the staffage (see Marco Chiarini, "Crescenzio Onofri a Firenze", Bollettino d’Arte, 52, 1967, pp. 30–32).