Giuseppe Valeriani
Italian, 1708-1762
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Giuseppe Valeriani was an Italian-born Russian artist who primarily painted murals and stage scenery.
He and his brother Domenico initially studied with Marco Ricci in Venice. After Ricci's death, he obtained an apprenticeship with the decorative painter, Girolamo Bon (c. 1700-1766). Bon and his new wife Rosa (a comic opera singer) went to Saint Petersburg in 1735, where he had been offered work as a scenic designer. In 1742, Bon invited two of his former students, Valeriani and Antonio Peresinotti, to join him there.
He travelled there in the company of the opera composer, Francesco Araja, who was serving as Kapellmeister to Empress Elizabeth. By 1745, he had become a Professor at the Academy of Sciences [ru].
He maintained a large workshop that employed numerous artists; including a young Dmitry Levitzky, who would later become a famous portrait painter.
Among his best known works are ceilings at the Catherine Palace and its attached Grand Resurrection Church [ru] (destroyed by fire); plafonds at Peterhof Palace and Stroganov Palace and a series of ten canvases depicting ancient Rome, now at the Hermitage Museum.
