Pietro Rotari | Baroque painter

Pietro Antonio Rotari (1707-1762) was an Italian painter and pastellist who was born in Verona.

Here he initially trained with Antonio Balestra, then moved to Venice and studied with Giovanni Battista Piazzetta.

In 1727, he went to Rome and in 1729 to Naples, where he worked with Francesco Solimena.

He later returned to Verona where he opened a private drawing academy and was made a count in 1749.

Fletcher Sibthorp, 1967 | Figurative painter

British painter Fletcher Sibthorp has worked as a full-time artist for the past twenty years, producing work in the commercial market, as well as selling paintings to private and corporate collectors.

Rank Xerox, British Telecom, Chase Manhatten Bank, Railtrack and Kirin Brewery are just a few of the companies that own his paintings as part of their collections. Initially, Fletcher was attracted by the concept of movement and its effect on the human form.

This naturally lead to his interest in sport and abstract portrayals of gymnasts and athletes, culminating in an exhibition 'In Motion' in London in 1992.

Nadar | The photographer of the Impressionists

Ringmaster, publicist, and performer in a highly theatrical life, the legendary Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, 1820-1910) wore many hats - those of journalist, bohemian, left-wing agitator, playwright, caricaturist, and aeronaut.

He had success in all these roles, but what he did best was collect a pantheon of friends whom he honored with his generous and perceptive photographic portraits.

Born Gaspard-Félix Tournachon in 1820, the son of a liberal publisher, Nadar grew up in Paris in the heady ferment of Romanticism.

Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Eugène Delacroix were his early heroes; Gérard de Nerval, Théophile Gautier, and Charles Baudelaire his maturing friends. Nadar’s imagination, wit, and spontaneity, like his passion for the colorful, unconventional, and free, were tendencies shared with both generations of Romantic writers and artists.

George Sand (French Romantic writer, 1804-1876) by Nadar, 1864

Pietro Antonio Rotari | A peasant girl In profile wearing a white scarf

Pietro Antonio Rotari 1707-1762) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period.

Born in Verona, he led a peripatetic career, and died in Saint Petersburg, where he had traveled to paint for the Russian court.

His portraits, mostly of women, are renowned for being beautiful and realistic.

Rotari's works were generally limited to royal portraits held by notables such as emperors and court ladies.

Marcel Proust: "Non smettere di cercare ciò che ami, o finiresti per amare ciò che trovi"

• "Dobbiamo essere grati alle persone che ci rendono felici. Sono i premurosi giardinieri che fanno fiorire la nostra anima".

• "Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom".

• "La musica è forse l’esempio unico di ciò che avrebbe potuto essere - se non ci fossero state l’invenzione del linguaggio, la formazione delle parole, l’analisi delle idee - la comunicazione delle anime".

• "La felicità è benefica per il corpo, ma è il dolore che sviluppa i poteri della mente".

• "Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind".