Martin Knoller

Martin Knoller (18 November 1725 – 24 July 1804) was an Austrian-Italian painter active in Italy who is remembered for his fresco work.

Born in Steinach am Brenner near the Austrian city of Innsbruck, Knoller studied under Paul Troger and Michelangelo Unterberger in Salzburg and Vienna. Specializing in frescoes and altarpiece paintings, his first fresco, the Glory of St Stephen, was completed in 1754 at the parish church of Anras in East Tyrol.[1]

In 1755, he arrived in Rome where he was influenced by Neoclassicism, after studying under Anton Raphael Mengs and Johann Joachim Winckelmann. His works cover both Baroque and Rococo, the latter prevailing in his paintings rather than in his frescoes. His greatest patron was Karl Joseph von Firmian, the Imperial Governor of Lombardy under Maria Theresa who commissioned him to paint the Palazzo Firmian-Vigoni. From 1793, he taught at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan where he died in 1804.[2] Among his pupils was Giuseppe Mazzola.