Biography

Italian painter. He worked primarily in Naples in a formidable naturalistic style deeply influenced by Jusepe de Ribera. His oeuvre was first critically evaluated in the mid-18th century by de Dominici, who included de Bellis among the foremost students of Massimo Stanzione. De Dominici dated de Bellis's best-known work, the incomplete cycle of oil paintings representing scenes from the Life of St Carlo Borromeo (in situ) at San Carlo alle Mortelle, Naples, to the mid-1650s, believing that the work had been left unfinished when the artist died in the plague of 1656. There is, however, no documentary evidence for de Bellis's death in that year, and archival evidence since uncovered by de Vito shows the paintings were commissioned between 1636 and 1638, executed 1636-39 and exhibited in the church in 1640. In light of this, the artist's date of birth of about 1616 has been suggested.