1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Crespi, Giuseppe Maria

CRESPI, GIUSEPPE MARIA (1665–1747), Italian painter, called “Lo Spagnuolo” from his fondness for rich apparel, was born at Bologna, and was trained under Angelo Toni, Domenico Canuti and Carlo Cignani. He then went through a course of copying from Correggio and Barocci; this he followed up with a journey to Venice for the sake of Titian and Paul Veronese; and late in life he proclaimed himself a follower of Guercino and Pietro da Cortona. He was a good colourist and a facile executant, and was wont to employ the camera obscura with great success in the treatment of light and shadow; but he was careless and unconscientious. He was a clever portrait-painter and a brilliant caricaturist; and his etchings after Rembrandt and Salvator are in some demand. His greatest work, a “Massacre of the Innocents,” is at Bologna; but the Dresden gallery possesses twelve examples of him, among which is his celebrated series of the Seven Sacraments.