Sebastiano Bombelli (October 1635; 4 May 1719) was an Italian painter, mainly active in Venice, during the Baroque period. Biography He was born in Udine on 14 or 15 October 1635 (baptized on the 15th), educated and trained under the guidance of his father Valentino and the godfather Girolamo Lugaro, he moved from a young age to Venice where, after a period of specialization with Guercino in Bologna, he began his career studying the manner of Paolo Veronese, quickly becoming one of his greatest connoisseurs. The synthesis of the techniques of Cinquecento, of the impulse given by naturalists and of the contemporary taste of the "tenebrosi" was addressed by Bombelli in the sector in which he specialized most, namely portraiture. Not to underestimate his stay in Florentine, during which he was able to appreciate the technique of Sustermans. His first surviving work dates back to 1665, it is the Portrait of Benedetto Mangilli (Civici Musei, Galleria d'Arte Antica, Udine), a painting that shows influences from Bernardo Strozzi. Among the peculiar characteristics of his works emerge vitality, expressiveness and communicability, both in the portraits anchored to the tradition Baroque like the Polo Querini of 1684 (Querini Stampalia Foundation, Venice) and in the most simplified ones. His characters emerge from the shadows although described to the smallest detail, showy with their showy and festive attires. Del 1675 is the first Self-portrait (Civici Musei, Galleria d'Arte Antica, Udine), characterized by a marked introspective vein and free from the embellishments typical of the official portrait which had made it famous to Venice. One of his many followers was Fra' Galgario (Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi) who spent a decade in Venice and had the opportunity to meet and collaborate with Bombelli. For a time he also studied in his workshop a young man Anton Domenico Gabbiani, who learned much from Bombelli (see his first portraits, like those of the Musicians of the court of the Grand Prince Ferdinando de 'Medici at the Galleria dell'Accademia); the two artists remained on excellent terms throughout their lives, as demonstrated by a beautiful letter from Bombelli addressed to the former student in 1716. He was also the master of Domenico and Giovanni Battista Parodi, sons of the Genoese sculptor Filippo Parodi, a personal friend of the friulian painter; Bombelli's fame as a skilled portrait painter was known internationally, so much so that one of his pupils was Johann Gottfried Tannauer,