Historical Archives & Public Figures

Bernardo Bellotto

🌐 Republic of Venice

1722 – 1780 (58 years old)

Venetian view painter, nephew and pupil of Canaletto, whose hyper-realistic, dark-toned urban landscapes of Dresden, Vienna, and Warsaw were used to rebuild historic Warsaw after WWII.

Warsaw, Poland

2 Full Record →

Arts & Music

3

🕯️ 0

Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin

Jean Siméon Chardin

Kingdom of France

1699 – 1779 (80 years old)

Supreme French painter of quiet domestic genre scenes and still lifes whose tactile realism, soft natural light, and works like 'The Ray' and 'The Brioche' captivated Diderot.

Paris, France

3 Full Record →

Arts & Music

2

🕯️ 0

François Boucher

Kingdom of France

1703 – 1770 (66 years old)

Premier French Rococo painter, engraver, and tapestry designer whose pastoral mythologies, sensuous pastels, and portraits of Madame de Pompadour epitomized the elegance of Louis XV.

Paris, France

2 Full Record →

Arts & Music

3

🕯️ 0

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Giambattista Tiepolo

Republic of Venice

1696 – 1770 (74 years old)

Supreme decorative fresco genius of the 18th century whose breathtaking ceiling in the Würzburg Residenz created the largest continuous ceiling fresco in the world.

Madrid, Spain

3 Full Record →

Arts & Music

3

🕯️ 0

Giovanni Antonio Canal

Canaletto

Republic of Venice

1697 – 1768 (70 years old)

Foremost Venetian veduta (view) painter whose sparkling, geometrically precise paintings of the Grand Canal and London palaces defined the visual souvenir of the Grand Tour.

Venice, Italy

3 Full Record →

Arts & Music

4

🕯️ 0

William Hogarth

Kingdom of England

1697 – 1764 (66 years old)

English pictorial satirist, painter, and pioneer of comic strips whose moral narrative series 'A Rake's Progress' and 'Marriage A-la-Mode' exposed 18th-century corruption.

London, United Kingdom

4 Full Record →

Arts & Music

2,500

🕯️ 115

Jean-Philippe Rameau

France

1683 – 1764 (80 years old)

Pivotal French Baroque composer and harmonic music theorist whose operas and treatises revolutionized Western music.

Paris, France

2,500 Full Record →

George Frideric Handel (Georg Friedrich Händel)

Arts & Music

8

🕯️ 980

George Frideric Handel (Georg Friedrich Händel)

Georg Friedrich Händel

Germany

23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759 (74 years old)

German-British Baroque titan whose grand orchestral suites (Water Music, Music for the Royal Fireworks) and dramatic English oratorios—above all Messiah with its immortal Hallelujah Chorus—electrified European musical life.

London, Great Britain

8 Full Record →

Arts & Music

1,725

🕯️ 115

Domenico Scarlatti

Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti

Kingdom of Naples (Italy)

1685 – 1757 (71 years old)

Italian composer whose 555 brilliant keyboard sonatas pushed harpsichord virtuosity and harmonic audacity to unprecedented heights.

Madrid, Spain

1,725 Full Record →

Arts & Music

4

🕯️ 0

Tomaso Albinoni

Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni

Republic of Venice

1671 – 1751 (79 years old)

Venetian Baroque composer celebrated for his lyrical oboe concertos, elegant trio sonatas, and Italian operas, whose melodic genius was deeply admired and studied by J.S. Bach.

Venice, Republic of Venice

4 Full Record →

Arts & Music

3

🕯️ 0

Rachel Ruysch

Dutch Republic

1664 – 1750 (86 years old)

Pre-eminent Dutch Golden Age flower painter whose exquisite scientific botanical accuracy, dramatic lighting, and vibrant floral bouquets earned international royal commissions across a 60-year career.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

3 Full Record →

Arts & Music

10

🕯️ 999

Johann Sebastian Bach

Germany

31 March 1685 – 28 July 1750 (65 years old)

Supreme master of Western music whose towering achievements in counterpoint, sacred cantatas, the Mass in B minor, the St Matthew Passion, and The Well-Tempered Clavier stand as the absolute summit of the Baroque era.

Leipzig (Saxony), Germany

10 Full Record →

Arts & Music

8

🕯️ 975

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi

Antonio Vivaldi

Italy

4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741 (63 years old)

Venetian Baroque composer and violin virtuoso whose brilliant three-movement concerto form, sparkling orchestral rhythms, and vivid program music in The Four Seasons defined high Baroque instrumental music.

Vienna, Austria

8 Full Record →

Arts & Music

4

🕯️ 0

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

Giovanni Battista Draghi

Papal States

1710 – 1736 (26 years old)

Italian early Classical composer who revolutionized comic opera with 'La serva padrona' and composed the immortal 'Stabat Mater' before dying of tuberculosis at age twenty-six.

Pozzuoli, Kingdom of Naples

4 Full Record →

Arts & Music

5

🕯️ 0

François Couperin

France

1668 – 1733 (64 years old)

French Baroque composer and organist known as 'Couperin le Grand', the supreme master of the French harpsichord school and creator of the haunting 'Leçons de ténèbres'.

Paris, France

5 Full Record →

Arts & Music

3

🕯️ 0

Sir Christopher Wren

Christopher Wren

Kingdom of England

1632 – 1723 (90 years old)

Savilian Professor of Astronomy, founder of the Royal Society, and England's greatest architect who rebuilt fifty-two churches after the Great Fire of London, crowned by Saint Paul's Cathedral.

London, United Kingdom

3 Full Record →

Arts & Music

3

🕯️ 0

Jean-Antoine Watteau

Antoine Watteau

Kingdom of France

1684 – 1721 (36 years old)

Pioneering French Rococo painter who invented the 'fête galante' genre, capturing fleeting romantic intimacy, music, and melancholy in 'The Embarkation for Cythera'.

Nogent-sur-Marne, France

3 Full Record →

Arts & Music

2

🕯️ 0

Maria Sibylla Merian

Holy Roman Empire

1647 – 1717 (69 years old)

German-Dutch scientific illustrator, botanist, and entomologist whose expedition to Suriname and masterpiece 'Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium' revolutionized art and science.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

2 Full Record →

Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries