Giovanni Andrea Donducci (Mastelletta)

Giovanni Andrea Donducci also known as Mastelletta (1575-1655), was an Italian Baroque painter of the Bolognese School (painting). His father was a maker of vats ("mastelli"). Born in Bologna, he trained in the Carracci "Academy degli Incamminati" at about the time when Domenichino, Lucio Massari, and perhaps Albani were there.

He belong to the generation of Carracci- inspired or trained painters comprised by Giacomo Cavedone (1577-1660); Alessandro Tiarini (1577-1668), Lucio Massari, Lionello Spada (1576=1622), and Lorenzo Garbieri. Art biographer Malvasia claims he befriended the Genoese Agostino Tassi while in Rome.

Between 1613-1614, he contributed to the decoration of the chapel of Saint Dominic in the Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna. On the right side of the chapel "The Miracle of the Forty Drowned" (1613) and on the left side the canvas "Resurrection of the young Napoleone Orsini" (1614). He also frescoed the patron saints of Bologna on the pendentives of the dome: "San Floriano", "St. Francis", "San Procolo" and "San Petronio".

Malvasia describes him by the late 1620s as increasingly neurotic and reclusive: “an enemy of his friends, suspicious of everyone, hating himself, in other words". His figures have an almost phantasmagoric Alessandro Magnasco-like fervor, not characteristic of Bolognese classicism. He is also painted elaborate landscapes to his paintings, likely an influence of Scarsellino's and/or Niccolò dell'Abbate's works.

Anthology of Works

*"Jesus served by Angels"(1615-17 [http://www.pinacotecabologna.it/collezione/percorsi/percorsoEsp_A.php?IDSala=30&IDOpera=120#]
*"Charity of a Saint" [http://www.pinacotecabologna.it/collezione/percorsi/percorsoEsp_A.php?IDSala=25&IDOpera=118]

References

*cite book | author= Francis P. Smyth and John P. O'Neill (Editors in Chief| year=1986| title= The Age of Correggio and the Carracci: Emilian Painting of the 16th and 17th Centuries| chapter= | editor= National Gallery of Art, Washington DC| others= | pages= 495-501| publisher= | id= | url= | authorlink=
*cite book | first= Rudolf|last= Wittkower| year=1993| title= Pelican History of Art| chapter= Art and Architecture Italy, 1600-1750| editor= | others=1980 | pages=92-95 | publisher= Penguin Books Ltd| id= | url= | authorlink=