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Bartolomeo Bettera was born in 1639 in Bergamo, Italy. While his life is mostly undocumented, scholars know he was a pupil of the priest-painter Evaristo Baschenis. Baschenis studied the works of Caravaggio and adapted his techniques, especially the use of naturalistic proportions and chiaroscuro (exaggerated contrast of light and dark). Bettera primarily focused on still-life paintings, however. He usually arranged musical instruments, books, and pottery on a table with a draping cloth at the top corner of his paintings. The still-lives carry symbolic meaning, typically celebrating music as one of the most divine things humans created. His musical subjects gave him a unique artistic identity during the seventeenth century. When his master Baschenis died in 1677, Bettera moved to Milan, Italy, and continued his work until his death sometime after 1687. Meta description: Bartolomeo Bettera was an Italian still-life painter. He mainly painted musical instruments.