Stefano Tofanelli - Eroe combattente detto volgarmente il Gladiatore

Engraver: Vitali Pietro Maria (1755/ 1830)
Designer: Tofanelli Stefano (1752/ 1812)
Subject
Identification: Ancient Gladiator
Proper title: HERO fighter commonly called Gladiator

Material and technique: etching/burin
State of preservation: mediocre (foxing, stains, creases)
Original work
Final/Original Work: Sculpture
Subject of the final/original work: Borghese Gladiator
Location of final/original work: Paris Louvre

Stefano Tofanelli completed his apprenticeship with Giuseppe Antonio Luchi in the company of the painter Bernardino Nocchi with whom he later moved to Rome in 1769. The two were not accepted as students by Pompeo Batoni but managed to enter the school of Niccolò Lapiccola where he developed a baroque style with neoclassical suggestions.

In 1781 he opened a drawing school, during which he created a series of portraits, including a self-portrait with his father, his brother Agostino and Bernardino Nocchi. He also created the decoration of the central hall of the Villa Mansi in Segromigno, centered on the deeds of Apollo. Between Lucca and Rome, Tofanelli alternated with works such as the Apotheosis of Romulus among the Gods in Palazzo Altieri in Rome, the church of San Antonio in Tivoli, the Buonvisi chapel in the Basilica of San Frediano in Lucca and many other interventions in the ancient villas of the Lucca area. From 1802 he moved permanently to Lucca where he became court painter for Elisa Baciocchi for whose family he created many portraits; for some years he was also a respected professor at the Academy of Painting in Lucca. In this period he also completed the painting of the Assumption in the Cathedral of Lucca and an important work in the Villa Reale di Marlia, which he left unfinished due to his death in 1812.