December 15, 1710: the well-known stone-carver Pietro Paolo Zahra (1685-1747) and his wife Augustina Casanova – from the equally well-known family of artists – presented their child Vincenzo Francesco to be baptised at Senglea parish church. He was the second of seven offspring but the eldest son.

He was always called Francesco by his family and, when he became of age, he adopted the signature Francesco Vincenzo Zahra. His exact birth date is unknown but, as it was a very common practice for children to be baptised very soon after birth, Francesco was most probably born in December 1710.

As one may expect, his artistic education started at an early age within his family household, at his father’s casa bottega. However, he was not attracted to the life of a scalpellino, like his renowned father, but to painting.

The well-known painter Gian Nicola Buhagiar (1698-1752) was a very close friend of the Zahra family and he became Francesco’s art teacher. At first, Zahra practised his art in his home town of Senglea, after which he moved permanently to Valletta after marrying Teresa Fenech (1726-51) on February 26, 1743.

The marriage produced at least five children, two of whom died at a very young age. The death of his wife at an early age did not hamper him from continuing to work incessantly, and he never remarried. He passed away at the age of 62 on August 19, 1773, and was buried in the Valletta (now collegiate) parish church of St Paul Shipwrecked, unfortunately in an unmarked grave.

It took little time for Zahra to outgrow his tutor Buhagiar and, in the 1740s, he really matured and developed his style. By the next decade, his paintings started to exhibit influences from the Neapolitan artistic milieu, including the famous Caravaggio (1571-1610) and Mattia Preti (1613-99).

Actually, Zahra never pursued artistic studies abroad, a fact borne out by the erudite art connoisseur Count Saverio Marchese (1757-1833) who, in 1815, thus stated this fact unequivocally: che mai studiò fuori della sua Patria. Baron de Piro’s Squarci di Storia, quoted by Canon Vincenzo Caruana Gatto (1852-1926) in 1905, echoes the information that Zahra was a stay-at-home artist: “che senza essersi giammai allontanato da Malta…”.

A number of art critics have tentatively ascribed his paintings to a Neapolitan link – an assertion that has never (so far anyway) been confirmed by solid documentary evidence.

In 1744, the great French painter Antoine Favray (1706-1798) arrived in Malta, no doubt attracted to the island by the Order of St John’s social and cultural prestige, although it was in a politically moribund state. He lived in Malta till 1761 before going to Constantinople for 10 years, but then lived the remainder of his life on the island.

From Favray, Zahra may also have learnt the art of portraiture, which made him a fashionable ritrattista

Contemporary information shows that Favray befriended and advised Zahra who, by now, had acquired a very appreciable level of artistic maturity. It is a fact, however, that whereas the Order commissioned Favray a number of pictorial works, Zahra rarely received such commissions except the probable oval canvases depicting St Joachim and St Anne for the country chapel of the Immaculate Conception at Wied Gerżuma, limits of Rabat.

Due to lack of documentation, the rapport between Zahra and Favray cannot be placed in a proper perspective, but it is a fact that Zahra was influenced by Favray’s more academically disciplined style, as borne out by his later works, which are more monumental and based on very good designs.

From Favray, Zahra may also have learnt the art of portraiture, which made him a fashionable ritrattista. Perhaps one of his best paintings of this genre is the half-length portrait of Bishop Fra Giovanni Carmine Pellerano (1702-83) at Wignacourt Museum in Rabat, in which the episcopal dignity is fully stated. This was one of his later works, since he died just three years after the bishop’s consecration.

Other significant portraits include the depictions of Monsignor Pietro Giacomo Testaferrata (in a private collection and one of his few signed works) and the half-length Don Johannes Barbara, now in the old sacristy of Tarxien parish church.

A cursory look at some of Zahra’s paintings would not be amiss. His first known important commission was in 1732 when he painted an altarpiece of Three Dominican Saints Adoring the Monogram of Christ for the Rabat Dominican church. Being one of his earliest paintings, it lacks the vibrancy associated with Zahra’s later works, though its composition is almost impeccable.

In 1735, Zahra was awarded the commission of two huge canvases depicting St Paul Baptising Publius and St Paul Preaching to the Maltese for the choir of the prestigious Church of St Paul Shipwrecked at Valletta; however, they were moved to the Dominican church in Rabat in 1794.

By 1740, Zahra’s paintings had really improved in quality and sophistication, as evidenced in his Institution of the Rosary for Żejtun, but the full impact of Neapolitan art on Francesco was realised in the altarpiece of The Virgin of the Rosary for the old parish church of Xewkija, with its pyramidal scheme and colourful opulence, which is almost Venetian.

Very fine renditions of the same theme are found at Tarxien, Attard, Għaxaq, Naxxar and Żejtun. A large Passion cycle once decorated the walls of Casa Manresa, Floriana (now the Archiepiscopal Curia) but the depictions of The Agony in the Garden, Christ before the High Priest, The Crowning with Thorns, and The Mocking of Christ are presently housed at the Cathedral Museum, Mdina.

A poignant Pietà and its companion piece depicting The Descent from the Cross, both in the chapel of the Holy Crucifix at the Kalkara Capuchin church of Santa Liberata, were probably painted in the 1760s.

Zahra also produced a cycle of six large canvases on biblical themes for the Oratory of the Blessed Sacrament, erected between 1743 and 1746 as an annex to Żejtun parish church. Each one carries a cartouche complementing each scene: Elijah and the Angel; David Before the Ark of the Covenant; Gideon and the Angel; Moses Filled with the Radiance of the Lord; The Sacrifice of Melchidech; and The Sacrifice of Noah. Taken as a group, these paintings rank among the best Maltese 18th-century renditions in the Neapolitan Baroque idiom.

In this limited space, the present author has perforce to be selective and subjective in his choices. I will, however, include another four large canvases: the titular altarpiece of St Helen at the Birkirkara collegiate basilica; The Presentation of Christ at the Temple, at Qormi (now collegiate) parish church of St George, whose recent restoration in 2022 has uncovered its date (1761 or 1767 because the last digit is not clear); and the two lateral canvases in the choir of St George’s collegiate basilica of Victoria, depicting St George in front of the Emperor Diocletian and The Martyrdom of St George.

Zahra has also a number of canvases depicting St Catherine of Alexandria, but his most prestigious commissions emanated from the Collegiate Chapter of the Mdina Cathedral: the execution of the exuberant Altar of Repose; the ceiling decoration of the Chapter Hall, generally considered to be his greatest work; the decoration of the Mdina Cathedral’s chapels of the Blessed Sacrament and the Holy Crucifix, together with the painting of their domes and lunettes.

Zahra was very prolific and his paintings are present all over the Maltese islands, leading many to think of him as a painter of mainly religious paintings of altarpieces and domes; this, however, is incorrect as his oeuvre was much wider and included portraits, designs for church furniture, silver artefacts, designs for marble floors and altars.

For example, the 1759-1761 collaboration with marble worker Gio. Antonio Durante to cover with marble the altar of the Cappella dell’Anime at St George’s parish church, Gozo, and various other objets d’art, many of which still survive in churches, museums and private collections. One may here note documented drawings by Zahra extant at the Mdina Cathedral Museum, including: the design for the prospective of the altar of the Blessed Sacrament; two working drawings for the Altar of Repose; a drawing for the church canopy; a coloured design for a marble slab or monument inscribed ‘Zahara’; and a design for the marble tomb slab at St John’s Co-Cathedral (the former conventual church of the Knights) of Grand Prior Fra Melchior Alphèran de Bussan (1654-1734).

Lack of space prevents the mentioning (at least) of the prolific output of paintings produced by Zahra during his working life. However, an impressive list of almost 300 works of art he produced has been published by Keith Sciberras in collaboration with Jessica Borg, in the 2010 stupendous publication celebrating the third centenary of Zahra’s birth.

Fittingly, Maltapost commemorated the 250th anniversary of Zahra’s death with the issue of a set of three postage stamps and a miniature sheet portraying four of his oil paintings that include his only known self-portrait.