Biography

Italian painter, part of a family of painters of Swiss origin. The brothers Enrico Giovanni Haffner and Antonio Maria Haffner (1654-1732) were renowned quadraturisti and fresco painters. They were the sons of a Swiss guard stationed in Bologna. The dynamic, flamboyant quality of their quadratura schemes, which they often executed in collaboration, reflected the Genoese Baroque style of the late 17th century and was in sharp contrast with the style of the brothers' Bolognese contemporaries. Opinion appears to credit Enrico with being superior in invention, Antonio Maria with being the better colourist.

Enrico was trained in the style of Agostino Spanzani Mitelli and followers. After a period of service in the court of Modena in the early 1660s, he joined forces with the painter Domenico Maria Canuti, with whom he executed his finest work, the frescoes in the nave of Santi Domenico e Sisto (1674-75), Rome, and the decorations of the vault of the first antechamber on the first floor of the Palazzo Altieri (1675-76), Rome.

In 1675 Haffner was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca. He moved back to Bologna and there worked with Gian Antonio Burrini (1656-1727) and Marcantonio Franceschini, with whom he decorated the ceiling of the Palazzo Ranuzzi (now Palazzo Giustizia) with Fortuna and the Seasons (1680). His last major work in Bologna was in collaboration with Canuti: frescoes (1677-78) in the library of San Michele in Bosco. In Savona he collaborated with Bartolomeo Guidobono on a vault fresco, Chariot of the Sun (c. 1680), in the Palazzo Gavotti. Some considerable time later he is known to have gone to Modena, to decorate the main reception hall of the Palazzo Ducale with Franceschini and Luigi Quaini (1643-1717). At an unknown date he moved to join his younger brother, Antonio, in Genoa. They worked together with several noted Genoese painters, decorating palazzi, among them the celebrated Palazzo Rosso.