Collection

Goatherd in Rome

Bartolomeo Pinelli

Basic information

ID: Г-IV-1705
Author: Bartolomeo Pinelli
Name: Goatherd in Rome
Date of creation: 1810s
Technique: etching watercolor
Material: paper
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 10 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

This engraving was issued in the album Nuova Raccolta di Cinquanta costumi pittoreschi incisi di acqua forte published in Rome in 1817. The composition with the central image of a milkman was repeated by the painter in 1819; it was titled Il capraro di Tivoli (Goatherd of Tivoli). However, that work showed a young girl with a kid on her lap sitting next to the milkman; the young man milking a she-goat was depicted looking at the girl. In the Lviv composition, the young man is looking at the viewer, at the same time milking a she-goat. There is a kid next to the she-goat, and there are two other goats in the background on the left. The rocky steep bank on the right, from which the green branches of trees are hanging, is depicted in the foreground on the right. The artist used subdued tones of color. Only trousers, a belt and a scarf of the goatherd are painted with bright colors drawing special attention to the man’s figure in the foreground.

Inscriptions

In the lower left corner there is the painter's signature Pinelli. In the center under the image there is the title of the work Il Capraro, in Roma. In the upper right corner of the engraving above the image there is a number "8".

Goatherd in Rome

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