48 Italian portrait painters

Tito Agujari was a well-known Italian portraitist and history painter. He first began learning to paint at the Academy of Fine Arts, and then began travelling to Trieste to learn more. He also travelled to England and France later in his life to learn.

Alessandro di Cristofano di Lorenzo del Bronzino Allori was an Italian portrait painter of the late Mannerist Florentine school.

Cristofano Allori was an Italian painter of the late Florentine Mannerist school, painting mostly portraits and religious subjects. Allori was born at Florence and received his first lessons in painting from his father, Alessandro Allori, but becoming dissatisfied with the hard anatomical drawing and cold coloring of the latter, he entered the studio of Gregorio Pagani, who was one of the leaders of the late Florentine school, which sought to unite the rich coloring of the Venetians with the Florentine attention to drawing. Allori also appears to have worked under Cigoli.

Baldassare Aloisi, or Baldassare Galanino, was an Italian history and portrait painter and engraver. He was also known as Il Galanino.

Lucia Anguissola was an Italian Mannerist painter of the late Renaissance. She was born in Cremona, Italy. She was the third daughter of seven children born to Amilcare Anguissola and Bianca Ponzoni. Her father was a member of the Genoese minor nobility and encouraged his five daughters to develop artistic skills alongside their humanist education. Lucia most likely trained with her renowned eldest sister Sofonisba Anguissola. Her art, mainly portraits, are similar in style and technique with her sister. Her skill was seen by contemporary critics as exemplar. According to seventeenth-century biographer Filippo Baldinucci, Lucia had the potential to "become a better artist than even Sofonisba" had she not died so young.

Sofonisba Anguissola, also known as Sophonisba Angussola or Sophonisba Anguisciola, was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Cremona to a relatively poor noble family. She received a well-rounded education that included the fine arts, and her apprenticeship with local painters set a precedent for women to be accepted as students of art. As a young woman, Anguissola traveled to Rome where she was introduced to Michelangelo, who immediately recognized her talent, and to Milan, where she painted the Duke of Alba. The Spanish queen, Elizabeth of Valois, was a keen amateur painter and in 1559 Anguissola was recruited to go to Madrid as her tutor, with the rank of lady-in-waiting. She later became an official court painter to the king, Philip II, and adapted her style to the more formal requirements of official portraits for the Spanish court. After the queen's death, Philip helped arrange an aristocratic marriage for her. She moved to Sicily, and later Pisa and Genoa, where she continued to practice as a leading portrait painter.

Pietro Annigoni was an Italian artist, portrait and fresco painter, best known for his portraits of Queen Elizabeth II, and medallist. His work was in the Renaissance tradition, contrasting with the modernist style that prevailed in his time.

Antonello da Messina, properly Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio, but also called Antonello degli Antoni and Anglicized as Anthony of Messina, was a Sicilian painter from Messina, active during the Early Italian Renaissance. His work shows strong influences from Early Netherlandish painting, although there is no documentary evidence that he ever travelled beyond Italy. Giorgio Vasari credited him with the introduction of oil painting into Italy. Unusually for a south Italian artist of the Renaissance, his work proved influential on painters in northern Italy, especially in Venice.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo was an Italian painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of objects such as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish and books.

Giovanni Boldini was an Italian genre and portrait painter who lived and worked in Paris for most of his career. According to a 1933 article in Time magazine, he was known as the "Master of Swish" because of his flowing style of painting.

Paolo Vincenzo Bonomini was an Italian painter.

Agnolo di Cosimo, usually known as Bronzino or Agnolo Bronzino, was an Italian Mannerist painter from Florence. His sobriquet, Bronzino, may refer to his relatively dark skin or reddish hair.

Maria Callani was an Italian portrait painter, active in the 18th century in Milan and Parma, Italy.

Rosalba Carriera was a Venetian Rococo painter. In her younger years, she specialized in portrait miniatures. It is for this that she was able to build a career in portraiture. Carriera would later become known for her pastel work, a medium appealing to Rococo styles for its soft edges and flattering surfaces. She is remembered as one of the most successful women artists of any era.

Mario Cavaglieri was an Italian painter.

Carlo Ceresa was an Italian painter of the Baroque period active mainly around Bergamo.

Francesco Coghetti was an Italian painter and art school administrator.

Lavinia Fontana was a Bolognese Mannerist painter best known for her portraiture. She was trained by her father Prospero Fontana and was active in Bologna and Rome. She is regarded as the first female career artist in Western Europe as she relied on commissions for her income. Her family relied on her career as a painter, and her husband served as her agent and raised their eleven children. She was perhaps the first woman artist to paint female nudes, but this is a topic of controversy among art historians.

Fra’ Galgario, born Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi, and also called Fra’ Vittore del Galgario, was an Italian painter, mainly active in Bergamo as a portraitist during the Rococo or late-Baroque period.

Orazio Gaigher, also known as Horatius was an Austrian-Italian painter and illustrator.

Antonino Gandolfo was an Italian painter.

Giovanni Battista Gaulli, also known as Baciccio or Baciccia, was an Italian artist working in the High Baroque and early Rococo periods. He is best known for his grand illusionistic vault frescos in the Church of the Gesù in Rome, Italy. His work was influenced by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Francesco Hayez was an Italian painter. He is considered one of the leading artists of Romanticism in mid-19th-century Milan, and is renowned for his grand historical paintings, political allegories, and portraits.

Alessandro Longhi was a Venetian portrait painter and printmaker in etching. He is known best for his oil portraits of Venetian nobles of state. His father was the famed genre painter Pietro Longhi. He trained under his father and Giuseppe Nogari (1699–1763). Like Sebastiano Bombelli in the prior century, Alessandro Longhi is noted for his zealous full-length depictions of robes and emblems of office. His "tumultuous and unusual (etching) technique shows first-hand knowledge of Rembrandt's etchings", according to Olimpia Theodoli.

Matilde Malenchini, née Meoni was an Italian portrait and genre painter in the Academic style.

Beatrice Morgari was an Italian painter, mainly of genre subjects, often depicting intimate family scenes.

Pietro Morgari was an Italian painter, primarily of portraits.

Giovanni Battista Moroni was an Italian painter of the Late Renaissance period. He also is called Giambattista Moroni. Best known for his elegantly realistic portraits of the local nobility and clergy, he is considered one of the great portrait painters of sixteenth century Italy.

Federico Guglielmo Jehuda Pollack, known as Gino Parin was an Italian painter of Jewish ancestry; known primarily for his portraits of women. He was also known as Friedrich Pollak or Polak.

Francesco Pavona was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. He was peripatetic, and became best known throughout Europe for pastel portraits, similar in style to Rosalba Carriera.

Charles Henri Pellegrini was an Italian Argentine engineer, lithographer, painter, and architect.

Anna Bacherini Piattoli (1720–1788) was an Italian painter.

Romualdo Prati was an Austrian-Italian painter who spent ten years working in Brazil. He painted in several genres, but is best remembered for his portraits.

Antonio Puccinelli was an Italian painter; one of the group known as the "Macchiaioli".

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.

Guido Reni was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, although his works showed a classical manner, similar to Simon Vouet, Nicholas Poussin, and Philippe de Champaigne. He painted primarily religious works, but also mythological and allegorical subjects. Active in Rome, Naples, and his native Bologna, he became the dominant figure in the Bolognese School that emerged under the influence of the Carracci.

Marietta Robusti was a Venetian painter of the Renaissance period. She was the daughter of Tintoretto and is sometimes referred to as Tintoretta.

Juana Romani, née Carolina Carlesimo was an Italian-born French portrait painter and artists' model.

Giuseppe De Sanctis was an Italian painter, primarily of portraits and cityscapes.

Gregorio Sciltian was an Italian-Armenian painter, designer, and medallist. Sciltian is well known for his portraiture and trompe-l'oeil compositions.

Elisabetta Sirani was an Italian Baroque painter and printmaker who died in unexplained circumstances at the age of 27. She was a pioneering female artist in early modern Bologna, who established an academy for other women artists.

Andrea Soldi (1703–1771) was an Italian portraitist active in Britain.

Tiberio di Tito (1573–1627) was an Italian painter. He was born in Florence. He was the son and pupil of the late-Mannerist painter Santi di Tito. He specialized in portrait painting, including small pencil portraits, on which he was much employed by Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici.

Anna Tonelli, née Anna Nistri was an Italian portrait painter, active in the late 18th century and early 19th century primarily in Florence and London. She often worked on miniature painting, watercolors, and pastels.

Lucia Casalini Torelli (1677–1762) was an Italian painter, active in Bologna. The wife of painter Felice Torelli, she was the mother of painter Stefano Torelli. She was born in Bologna, where she trained under Giovanni Gioseffo dal Sole.

Michele Tosini, also called Michele di Ridolfo, (1503–1577) was an Italian painter of the Renaissance and Mannerist period, who worked in Florence.

Raimondo or Ramón Tusquets y Maignon was an Italian-Spanish painter, known for his eclectic subjects, ranging from orientalist themes, historical compositions to genre scenes of the countryside in Campania.

Virginia Vezzi, sometimes given as Virginia da Vezzo (1601–1638), was an Italian painter, and the wife of French painter Simon Vouet.