Lorenzo Quaglio the Younger

An architectural and theatrical painter, lithographer and genre painter, Lorenzo Quaglio was the scion of a large family of artists from Northern Italy who had settled in Munich in the late 18th century. Lorenzo was trained by his father Giuseppe and his brother Angelo. From 1812 he worked as a decoration painter and stage designer at the court theatre in Munich, later turning his hand successfully to genre painting. The present set design for Mozart’s opera Idomeneo, which probably dates to 1812–15, derives its fascination from the accuracy of the drawing and the effective distribution of light. The columnar architecture, observed from a low vantage point and an oblique angle, creates an impressive sense of depth, thus imbuing the scene with grandeur and monumentality. The consummate mastery of the central perspective is inconceivable without the examples of the architectural prospects produced by the Galli- Bibiena family of artists.