Collection

Roman Saltarello

Bartolomeo Pinelli

Basic information

ID: Г-IV-1697
Author: Bartolomeo Pinelli
Name: Roman Saltarello
Date of creation: 1810s
Technique: etching watercolor
Material: paper
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 10.3 x 16.1

Additionally

Type: graphic art
Genre: genre art
Provenance: Collection of Faina Tarashchanska (Lviv), 1966

Information about author

Author: Bartolomeo Pinelli
Artist's lifetime: 1781–1835
Biography: Bartolomeo Pinelli (1781, Rome – 1835, ibid.) was an Italian painter, engraver, and sculptor. He was the son of the ceramist G. B. Pinelli. Bartolomeo Pinelli was born in the Trastevere district (over the River Tiber). Street sketches of that western suburb of Rome repeatedly appeared in his graphic works later. He studied in Bologna, later on – at Accademia di San Luca (Academy of Saint Luke) in Rome. He attended the Academy of Felice Giani, an Italian painter of the Neoclassic style, from whom he inherited the drawing style. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Bartolomeo Pinelli took an interest in the engravings of the Renaissance, namely in the works by Marcantonio Raimondi, and started making etchings and lithographs out of his drawings. In 1809, Pinelli created his first series of watercolor etchings – Collection of 50 picturesque costumes (Raccola di cinquanta costumi pittoreschi). The album was reissued in 1814 and 1815. In 1816, a new version of the album under the title Nuova Raccolta di Cinquanta costumi pittoreschi incisi di acqua forte was released. Most of the Lviv engravings are from this series. The central theme of the artist's creative work is genre scenes (Costumi), which he saw in Rome, Naples, as well as the provinces of Abruzzo and Molise. Pinelli's engravings have not only artistic value but also carry important ethnographic information. In the 1820s and 1830s, the artist created drawings and engravings for poems by Torquato Tasso (1827–1829) and the novel “Don Quixote” (1834) by Miguel de Cervantes. One of Pinelli's famous series of drawings is Seven Hills of Rome (Sette colli di Roma) (1827–1830). The artist's works are housed in many Italian museums as well as in collections of other countries.

Object description

It’s a version of one of Pinelli's most famous compositions from the albums Raccolta (1809) and Nuova Raccolta (1816). Unlike most of the reproduced engravings, the Lviv composition lacks a fragment of an aqueduct and presents a larger number of female spectators on the left (four instead of two). A similar version of the engraving (but not painted in watercolor) from Nuova Raccolta published by Giovanni Scudellari in Rome in 1817 is kept in the library of the Hamburger Kunsthalle. Saltarella (saltarello) is an ancient ballroom dance, which in the late 18th century was revived in Italy as a folk dance. It is fast and expressive. It is performed by one couple. B. Pinelli's engraving depicts a couple in the center – a gentleman is dancing and playing the lute simultaneously; a lady is making a dancing move, at the same time raising the drapery of her dress with her hand. A man and a woman with a child are watching the dancers under the wall on the right side of the work. On the left in the background of a lush tree, there is a group of women dancers standing. The engraving is brightly painted with blue, yellow, red, and green watercolors.

Inscriptions

In the lower left corner there is the author’s signature – Pinelli f. [fecit]. In the center of the engraving under the image there is the work’s title Saltarello Romano. There is a number "1" in the upper right corner above the image.

Roman Saltarello

Other