Giuseppe Maria Crespi

Giuseppe Maria Crespi, nicknamed Lo Spagnuolo for his flashy dress, brought ordinary life into Italian Baroque painting with a warmth and shadow that look back to Rembrandt. A woman hunting fleas by candlelight, a kitchen, a country fair, treated with the seriousness usually reserved for saints and gods.

Working in Bologna, he made his boldest move with the 'Seven Sacraments', a set showing each rite as a quiet, dimly lit human moment rather than grand ceremony, a real confession, a real ordination. The series now hangs together in Dresden.

His loose brush and dramatic light passed to pupils such as Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, who carried the shadowy manner into Venetian painting. Crespi worked in Bologna until his death in 1747, going blind in his final years.