The Italian Baroque Era painter, Mattia Preti, is celebrated as a prominent Italian artist of the late Baroque style, whose work extended the reputation of Neapolitan painting throughout Italy and internationally during the second half of the 17th century.

Best-known for adorning the baroque churches of Malta, Preti was born in Taverna, a small town in the south of Italy, in the Calabria region, on 24th February 1613.

Absorbing the workings and psychology of the royal court to portrait the Spanish royal family in an unprecedented documentary fashion and aristocratic elegance, the Spanish Baroque Era painter, Juan Carreño de Miranda, is considered the most important Spanish court painter of the Baroque period after Diego Velázquez.