He studied first under his father, Felice Torelli, and then under Francesco Solimena.
The future King of Poland, Augustus III, brought him to Dresden in 1740, where he painted altar-pieces and ceiling decorations, many destroyed in the Seven Years' War.
He painted figures in Canaletto's twenty-nine views of Dresden (1741).
In 1762 he was summoned to the Russian court where he painted ceilings in the Royal Palace, and some portraits, among the latter one of the Empress Elizabeth in armor.
This article about an Italian painter born in the 18th century is a stub.