Francesco Conti (painter)

His formative years were spent in the artistic circle of Simone Pignoni then, when he was eighteen, he went to Rome, where he was a student of Giovanni Maria Morandi and Carlo Maratta.

He was supported then and throughout his career by the succeeding Marquises Riccardi  [it], who regularly commissioned paintings from him and provided a salary.

[2] Influenced by Sebastiano Ricci, he abandoned his Classical style in favor of chiaroscuro.

Notable paintings from this period include a Madonna for the parish church of Sant'Alessandro a Giogoli (1715), and a Saint Abundius for the Villa La Quiete [it] (1729).

In 1736, Gian Gastone de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, appointed him master of drawing for the children of his gallery architects, preparatory to the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, of which he was already a member.