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Tivoli Costumes (Mother with a Baby on a Donkey and Shepherd Traveller)

Bartolomeo Pinelli

  • Tivoli Costumes (Mother with a Baby on a Donkey and Shepherd Traveller) 2
  • Tivoli Costumes (Mother with a Baby on a Donkey and Shepherd Traveller) 3
Basic information
ID
Г-IV-1744
Author
Bartolomeo Pinelli
Name
Tivoli Costumes (Mother with a Baby on a Donkey and Shepherd Traveller)
Date of creation
1816 (?)
Technique
etching watercolour
Material
paper
Dimensions (height x width, cm)
10.2 x 16.4
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 work is from the Roman series. The first version of the composition is known from the album Costumi di Tivoli, published in 1815 and reissued in 1816 in the album Nuova Raccolta di Cinquanta Costumi Pittoreschi incisi all 'acquaforte da Bartolomeo Pinelli Romano, Nicola de Antoni impresse, Ignazio Pavon Offre e Dedica Roma, Roma 1816. In 1818, Pinelli replicated this version in watercolour. A version similar to the Lviv one was released in black and white in the album Nuova Raccolta di Cinquanta Costumi Pittoreschi (New Collection of Fifty Picturesque Costumes), published by Giovanni Scudellari in Rome in 1817. The second version of the composition was no different from the first one, except for a donkey depicted instead of a horse. Besides, the image was less skillfully painted than in the first version. In the foreground, one can see a young woman with a baby pressed to her chest; they are moving on a donkey along a mountain path. She meets a young shepherd starting a conversation, but the woman looks indifferently right through the traveller. She is dressed in clothes typical for southern Italy, particularly in a blue jacket with epaulettes, a long pink skirt, and a white headscarf on her head. A young man wears a blue jacket dressed over a red vest, with a sleeveless coat thrown on top of it, yellow trousers, white stockings, and black shoes. There is a black hat on the shepherd's head; on his shoulder, he is holding a long trumpet, an analogue of the Hutsul trembita. To the left of the characters is a hill; to the right, there is a fragment of a tree, behind which, in the background, one can see a blue valley where the city is located (a fragment of one of the buildings is visible). The characters' clothes are painted with bright watercolours, namely red, blue, yellow, and pink tones. The background is depicted in green, ochre, and blue colours.
Inscriptions
In the lower right corner, there is the author's signature Pinelli f [fecit], date – 1816, and the place of performance – Roma. In the centre of the engraving, under the image, is the work's title, Costume di Tivoli (on other engravings – Costumi). The number "36" is in the upper right corner above the plate.
Legal regulation
Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

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