(b Genoa, 21 Dec 1641; d Genoa, 1710). Painter and draughtsman, son of (1) Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione. He is best known as a clever imitator of his father’s paintings. His early years were spent in Rome, where he is documented in his father’s household between 1647 and 1651. In the 1650s and 1660s he spent time in the itinerant studio of Giovanni Benedetto between Mantua (1661 and 1663), Genoa (1661–3) and Venice (1661). In the early 1660s he began to execute works highly imitative of his father’s style, such as the signed and dated Journey of Rebecca (1660; Genoa, priv. col., see Standring, 1970–71, rev. 1987, p. 176, fig. 157), one of only two works that can be dated with some certainty. The handling of this picture reveals an attempt at the virtuoso brushwork characteristic of Giovanni Benedetto’s late works, but Giovanni Francesco failed to achieve his father’s success in describing form. Francesco’s works are cited in numerous Venetian, Genoese and Neapolitan inventories and include the Sacrifice of Noah (El Paso, TX, Mus. A.) and a signed Nurture of Cyrus (untraced; see 1971 exh. cat., fig. 36). A small group of drawings contains one connected with the latter picture (Philadelphia, PA, Mus. A.) and two watercolour drawings with an 18th-century Venetian attribution to him, the Fable of the Hunter’s Reward and the Lion as the King of the Beasts (both New York, Met.).

Part of the Castiglione family

• Castiglione, Giovanni Francesco
  • Castiglione