Francesco Liani Biography
Francesco Liani (Borgo San Donnino, circa 1712 – Naples, 1780) was an Italian painter. He moved to Naples around 1740, following Charles of Bourbon. He is best known for some portraits of Neapolitan sovereigns: Charles of Bourbon on horseback, Maria Amalia of Saxony on horseback (both in Naples, Capodimonte Museum, ca. 1755), Ferdinand IV of Bourbon (signed, 1766, Royal Museum of Copenhagen) and a portrait of the same sovereign in military clothes, lost, from which a tapestry was made in 1772 (Naples, Capodimonte Museum). His greatest qualities, however, are found in a long series of paintings of sacred subjects, in which elements of clear Neapolitan derivation are grafted onto a background of Emilian culture (with influences from Domenico Mondo, Pietro Bardellino and Giuseppe Bonito), filtered through knowledge of the works painted by Mengs in Naples. These are the entire series of the Via Crucis (in the Cathedral of Capua), a Nativity and a Presentation in the Temple (Naples, Capodimonte Museum), three canvases with episodes of the Birth of Christ and an Adoration of the Magi (Naples , Royal Palace), of a series of eight paintings with Stories of the Passion (Palace of Caserta) and of the Wedding at Cana (Capua, Campania Museum). He was a portrait painter for many families of the Neapolitan nobility, including that of the De Sangros in the line of the Marquises of San Lucido and Dukes of Sangro.
