Bartolomeo Altomonte

Self-portrait, Oil on canvas

Bartolomeo Altomonte, also known as Bartholomäus Hohenberg (24 February 1694, in Warsaw – 11 November 1783, in Sankt Florian), was an Austrian baroque painter who specialized in large scale frescoes. He was the son of Martino Altomonte, also a painter.

Biography

Altomonte was born in Warsaw, where his father, Martino Altomonte, had been appointed to the court of Jan Sobieskis. He was the third of six children. He learned from assisting his father at painting, but also from an apprenticeship with Daniel Gran.

He studied with Benedetto Luti in Rome and in Naples with Francesco Solimena. A sketchbook compiled by Altomonte while with Luti is in the Albertina.

From 1722 he lived in Austria. Altomonte spent most of his life in Linz and worked primarily in Austrian monasteries such as St. Florian's Priory and Admont Abbey. In 1747 he painted a ceiling fresco for the library at St. Florian's.

Other frescoes and altarpieces he painted for the convents of Wilhering, Herzogenburg, for the cathedral of Sankt Pölten, and for churches in Vienna. In Seitenstetten Abbey the frescoes on the Grand Staircase are by Altomonte. Around 1740, he did an oil on canvas painting of the Wunder des heiligen Nikolaus for Neuberg Abbey.

Tendencies towards the rococo remained foreign to the artist all his life; he is considered one of the last great painters in the manner of the baroque allegory.

Works

• 
  The Four Seasons Favoring Chronos (1737), oil on canvas. In the collection of the Residenzgalerie, Salzburg
• 
  Ceiling frescoes at the Wilhering Abbey
• 
  The death of St. Joseph
• 
  Isaac blessing Jacob, 1760
• 
  The Immaculate Conception, 1719

Bibliography

• Duller, Eduard (1845). Maria Teresa ed i suoi tempi [Maria Teresa and her times] (in Italian). Vol. 1. Milano: Carlo Rettig.
• Weiß (1875), "Altomonte", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 1, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, p. 372
• Heinzl, Brigitte (2003). "Altomonte family". Grove Art Online. Oxford: OUP. doi:10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.t002146. ISBN 978-1-884446-05-4.
• Lehr, Rudolf (2004). Landeschronik Oberösterreich 3000 Jahre in Daten, Dokumenten und Bildern [Country chronicle of Upper Austria 3000 years in data, documents and images] (in German). Vienna. ISBN 978-3-85498-331-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Salvadori, Giovanni (1891). La congregazione della chiesa nazionale italiana in Vienna. Notizie storiche estratte da documenti originali [The congregation of the Italian national church in Vienna. Historical information extracted from original documents] (in Italian). Vol. 1. Drexher & Company.

External links

• Entry for Bartolomeo Altomonte on the Union List of Artist Names