The Greatest 18th century Painter
Francesco was born in Senglea, the son of Pietro Paolo Zahra, a stone-carver and Augustina née Casanova, the daughter of the renowned stone-carver and architect, Vincenzo Casanova. He came from a family of sculptors based in Senglea. His grandfather, Antonio Zahra, son of Mro. Mattheolo married Annetta D’Adamo in Senglea on 7 February 1677 and is known to have executed sculptural decorations for Lija parish church between 1701 and 1713. But much more known member of the family is undoubtedly his father, Pietro Paolo, who earned a solid reputation for himself as the island’s foremost stone-carver.
Pietro Paolo Zahra and Augustina Casanova married at the Senglea parish church on 1 August 1706, and they had, at least, seven children. Francesco, the second child, and eldest son was baptised at the same parish church on 15 December 1710. Francesco’s surviving brothers and sisters were – Rosa, Maddalena, Margherita, Maria, Felice and Benedetto.
Francesco Zahra’s life coincided with those decades of the 18th century when many of the island’s splendid parish churches came to be enlarged or refurbished, and when the demand for their decoration where constant.
Zahra, who was destined to become the island’s greatest 18th century painter grew up with hammers and chisels as his first playthings.
Nothing is known of his upbringing, but his neatly written business letters in Italian, make it sure that he received a good education.
According to our art historians, Gio Nicola Buhagiar had indeed been Francesco Zahra’s art teacher. But most probably Buhagiar did not properly exploit to the full the talents that the young Zahra must have shown. Francesco’s career suffered because of his training with an artist of a limited talent.
According to art historian, Keith Sciberras, ‘Francesco’s tutorship must have started around the mid-1720s, when Gio Nicola Buhagiar had already achieved recognition as an independent master. In Buhagiar’s workshops Zahra learned through bottega practice the craftsmanship of the art. He learned how to grind and prepare his pigments, stretch and prepare canvases and also the art of composing, drawing and modelling and, possibly, the very basics of art history’.
Probably, Francesco Zahra remained active in assisting his father in the numerious commissions for statuary and sculptured reredoses. The father-and-son relationship remained strong well into the years, and in fact in the 1740’s Francesco painted the polychromy of Pietro Paolo’s processional wood-carved statue of the Virgin of the Rosary for Mosta parish church.
Zahra’s oeuvre, developed considerably and his works can be divided in phases that show a progressive maturity.
Most probably Zahra’s talents as a painter blossomed at an early age. His early work, such as the small sotto quadro of the Assumption of the Virgin, documented to 1730 for the main apse of the parish church of St Catherine at Żejtun. This shows the limitations of the teenage painter. He received his first important commission in 1732 with the altarpiece of Three Dominican Saints Adoring the Holy Name of Jesus for the church of Santa Maria della Grotta in Rabat. At the age of 25, in 1735, Zahra already emerges as a painter in whose abilities the Canons of St Paul’s Shipwrecked Parish Church of Valletta paid him for two large canvases executed by him: St Paul Baptising Publius and St Paul Preaching to the Maltese for the church’s choir.
He was considered the best contemporary artist working in the Neapolitan Baroque style, and even surpassed the well-established artist Gannikol Buhagiar, one of his early teachers.
In his critical appreciation, Mario Buhagiar, described Zahra as ‘complex and elusive, and seems to have been extremely prolific and, it is probable that he ran a busy workshop in which assistants helped him cope with the many commissions that must have given him few moments of respite in a long career of over forty-one years’. His works included church-vault paintings, many altarpieces and large paintings for church decoration, numerous small devotional paintings for private market and several portraits, as well as drawings for altar-reredoses, church furniture and miscellaneous marble works.
Zahra’s most prestigious commission was the ceiling decoration of the Chapter Hall of Mdina Cathedral, carried out in 1756. He was also a very good portrait painter. Among his most successful works of portraits are the Fra Giovanni Carmine Pellerano, in the Wignacourt Museum, Rabat, and Don Johannes Barbara at the Tarxien sacristy parish church. His paintings are to be found amongst numerous parish churches and other churches in Malta and Gozo, as well as in private collections.
Francesco Vincenzo Zahra married Teresa Fenech at St Paul’s Shipwrecked parish church Valletta on 26 February 1743. Teresa was born on 17 June 1726, the daughter of Francesco and Clara née Cachia from Valletta. Francesco’s marriage with Teresa produced five children: Casimiro (b.1745, d. 1750), Praxedes (b.1746), Blandina (b.1747, d.1748), Aurelius (b.1748) and Aloysio alias Luigi (b.1750); all these births are recorded in the parish registers of St Paul’s Shipwrecked church, Valletta.
From the Senglea status animarum lists for the year 1741 show Francesco Zahra was living with his parents, his sisters Margherita and Maddalena, and his brothers Felice and Benedetto, at number Columna 3, Prope Turrim S. Michaeli, Senglea (evidently quite close to the site of Senglea Parish Church. This address has in fact been located within the precincts of present-day Saint Lawrence Street).
He established himself in Valletta where his wife died prematurely on 27 May 1751. He survived her by twenty-two years. St Paul’s Shipwrecked status animarum records for the year 1745 reveal that Francesco Zahra, together with his wife Teresa and his infant son Casimiro, resided with his mother-in-law’s large family at n. 12, Quartiere Decimo Sesto delli Mercadenti di San Paolo, Valletta.
This biography is part of the collection created by Michael Schiavone over a 30-year period. Read more about Schiavone and his initiative here.