Pietro Melchiorre Ferrari trained initially with his father Paolo, a humble religious painter, and went on to be a student of Vittorio Bigari in Bologna. In Rome he frequented the recently created Academy of Fine Arts, where he met Giuseppe Baldrighi, who was to become his true master and guide. He won prizes in successive competitions at the Academy in 1758, 1760 and 1761, with the last of these leading to his admission as a member of the Academy and a post as a teacher of drawing there. In 1774 he was made an honorary member of the Clementine Academy of Bologna, and in 1785 he became the official portrait painter to the Court City of Parma, under the protection of Minster Guillaume du Tillot, whose portrait he had painted and whose palazzo he had decorated.
He worked in a wide range of genres, and stands at the transition from the rococo style to a contained form of neo-classicism. At the time of his death he was working on a large painting of the family of the Crown Prince.
Sources and bibliography:
Lucía Fornani Schianchi L’arte a Parma dai Farnese ai Borbone, Parma: Alfa, 1979, pp. 111-122.
Pietro Melchiorre Ferrari trained initially with his father Paolo, a humble religious painter, and went on to be a student of Vittorio Bigari in Bologna. In Rome he frequented the recently created Academy of Fine Arts, where he met Giuseppe Baldrighi, who was to become his true master and guide. He won prizes in successive competitions at the Academy in 1758, 1760 and 1761, with the last of these leading to his admission as a member of the Academy and a post as a teacher of drawing there. In 1774 he was made an honorary member of the Clementine Academy of Bologna, and in 1785 he became the official portrait painter to the Court City of Parma, under the protection of Minster Guillaume du Tillot, whose portrait he had painted and whose palazzo he had decorated.
He worked in a wide range of genres, and stands at the transition from the rococo style to a contained form of neo-classicism. At the time of his death he was working on a large painting of the family of the Crown Prince.
Sources and bibliography:
Lucía Fornani Schianchi L’arte a Parma dai Farnese ai Borbone, Parma: Alfa, 1979, pp. 111-122.