Giacomo Francesco Cipper – “il Todeschini”, Young man eating from a wooden bowl, oil on canvas, Italy, 1st third of the 18th century

Biography

Giacomo Francesco Cipper was born in 1664 in Feldkirch, Austria, very close to the border with Switzerland, which was then part of the Holy Roman Empire. It is not known where Cipper received his art training or from whom, but in 1696 it was recorded that he lived in Milan. There he married and had ten children, suggesting that he had considerable success as a painter. Cipper specialized in painting human types from the margins of society - beggars, street vendors and vagrants. Giacomo Ceruti (1697-1767) also later aimed at the same subject matter. Perhaps influenced by Ceruti (some of whose works were once attributed to Cipper), he moved away from meticulous observation of detail, replacing it with a less representational vision, more sensitive to the play of light.

Cipper's earliest dated painting is a still life from 1700 (private collection); many of his larger works also include still-life elements in their compositions. Cipper died in 1736.