Guido Reni

Guido Reni was a Bolognese painter trained in the Carracci academy who became the most admired painter of religious pictures in seventeenth-century Italy. He worked in Rome for the Borghese family, painting the ceiling fresco Aurora in the Casino Rospigliosi, before settling back in Bologna at the head of a large workshop. His style is calm, graceful and classical, with pale colour and idealised faces. The National Gallery in London and Dulwich Picture Gallery both hold paintings by him.