LAURI, Filippo
(b. 1623, Roma, d. 1694, Roma)

Biography

Italian painter and draughtsman. He studied first with his father, Balthasar Lauwers (1578-1645), a Flemish landscape painter whose name was Italianized as Lauri, and then with his elder brother, Francesco Lauri (1612-37), and with his brother-in-law, Angelo Caroselli. At least until the death of Caroselli (1652) he worked as a copyist. Francesco had been a pupil of Andrea Sacchi, and Filippo, who was thus trained in a classical tradition, developed an elegant style, indebted to 17th-century Bolognese painters, particularly Domenichino and Francesco Albani. In 1654 Lauri became a member of the Accademia di S Luca, Rome, of which he later became Principe (1684-85). He painted some fresco decorations, but specialised mainly in cabinet pictures of religious or mythological subjects.