A Bolognese Mannerist Master

Niccolò dell’Abbate - The Continence of Scipio - c. 1555 - Oil on canvas, 127 x 115 cm - Musée du Louvre, Paris (click photo for larger image)Niccolò dell’Abbate (1509-1571) was a painter of the Bolognese school, who, along with others, introduced the post-Renaissance Italian style of Mannerism to France and helped to inspire the French classical school of landscape painting. In the early 14th century, Bologna was an intellectual center of international character. Generally, the term Bolognese School denotes the school of Italian painting which, in the 16th and 17th centuries, was the center of classicism as  it was taught by the Carracci Academy. The painting featured here is typical of the elegant art emerging in Fontainebleau inspired by Primaticcio.