ANTONIO DA CREVALCORE

Antonio da Crevalcore (Antonio Leonelli), Italian painter and musician. Although Antonio da Crevalcore was highly regarded by his contemporaries as both a painter of still-lifes and a musician, his artistic oeuvre remains the subject of debate. It has been suggested that he trained in Ferrara, because of the stylistic similarities his work shares with other Ferrarese painters working in Bologna, such as Francesco del Cossa and Ercole de’ Roberti. The influence of Cossa’s Bolognese painting on Crevalcore is clear, especially of the Pala dei Mercanti (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna), but the connection between Cossa’s Ferrarese works or Ercole de’ Roberti’s later Ferrarese paintings and Crevalcore is less evident.

He is first mentioned as a painter in Bologna in 1461. He is then documented at intervals until 1525. His earliest documented painting, from 1480, is a ruinous fresco above the portico of the church San Giacomo Maggiore. His only other signed and dated painting, of 1493, was destroyed in Berlin during World War II. His fascination with perspectival devices and his love of trompe-l’oeil details found its expression in the still-lifes for which he became famous.