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Bartolomeo Pinelli

Basic information

ID: Г-IV-1728
Author: Bartolomeo Pinelli
Name: Windy
Date of creation: 1816
Technique: etching watercolour
Material: paper
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 10 x 16

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
Country: Italy
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 was born in the Trastevere district (over the Tiber River). He studied in Bologna and later at the Academy of Saint Luke in Rome. The artist attended the Academy of Felice Giani, an Italian painter of the Neoclassic style, from whom he adopted the drawing style. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, 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 watercolour etchings – Collection of Fifty Picturesque Costumes (Raccolta di Cinquanta Costumi Pittoreschi). The album was reissued in 1814 and 1815. In 1816, a new version of the album under the title New Collection of Fifty Picturesque Costumes (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 work is genre scenes (Costumi), which he saw in Rome and Naples, as well as the provinces of Abruzzo and Molise. Pinelli's engravings are not only of 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 and collections of other countries.

Object description

The composition is known in two variants. The first one is for the album Raccolta di Cinquanta Costumi Pittoreschi (Collection of Fifty Picturesque Costumes), published in Rome in 1809, which depicts a group of people with a horse walking along a mountain path between boulders in the strong wind. The second version from the album Nuova Raccolta di Cinquanta Costumi Pittoreschi incisi di acqua forte (New Collection of Fifty Picturesque Costumes), published in Rome in 1815, which was replicated in 1817, is simpler – it depicts a family, a man with a child and a woman on a donkey, who are walking forward despite the strong wind. The Lviv composition dated 1816 is a simplified version of the second variant. The drawing is not as detailed as in the engraving from the album dated 1815. The author pays more attention to the colour contrasts of the man’s blue cloak and the red skirt of a young woman sitting on a tired donkey. The woman is covering the headscarf with one hand; the other hand is on the basket. Their son, a plump and barefoot boy in knee-length yellow pants, hides behind the dad. The action takes place on top of a mountain. Close to the characters is just a low tree bending down in the strong wind.

Inscriptions

In the lower right corner, there is the author's signature Pinelli written in italics, the date – 1816, and the place of performance – Roma (illegibly). In the centre of the engraving, under the image, is the work's title Tira vento. The number "25" is in the upper right corner above the plate.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

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