The Venetian painter, draughtsman and frescoist Francesco Fontebasso began his artistic career as a pupil of Sebastiano Ricci (1659–1734). In 1728 he went to Rome to attend the Accademia di San Luca, before returning once again to Venice. By the 1740s he had become one of the most established and sought after painters in Venice. In this period he executed numerous commissions for churches in Venice, both oil paintings and frescoes. The noble Manin family commissioned him to paint the chapel in their villa at Passariano di Codroipo and the ceiling of the Gesuiti church in Venice (1734). In the spring of 1761 he travelled to St Petersburg at the invitation of the Russian imperial court and there completed ceiling paintings and other decorations for the Winter Palace, which unfortunately have not survived. He returned to Venice in 1762 and remained there until his death in 1769.