Beccafumi, Domenico

Beccafumi, Domenico (b nr. Siena, c.1485; d Siena, Jan./May 1551). Sienese painter, sculptor, and printmaker. He is now generally considered the outstanding Sienese Mannerist artist, although Sodoma was more highly esteemed by his contemporaries. According to Vasari, he visited Rome early in his career, and he was certainly aware of the work of Michelangelo and Raphael, as well as of contemporary Florentine art, combining the new ideas of the High Renaissance with the bright and decorative colouring of Sienese tradition. His work is noteworthy for its sense of fantasy and striking effects of light, as in the Birth of the Virgin (c.1543), one of several outstanding examples of his work in the Pinacoteca, Siena. Late in his career he turned to sculpture, producing a series of eight bronze angels (1547–51) for Siena Cathedral. He also worked as an illuminator and occasionally made engravings and woodcuts.