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Micheletti – Costumes of the Kingdom of Naples

Bartolomeo Pinelli

Basic information

ID: Г-IV-1757
Author: Bartolomeo Pinelli
Name: Micheletti – Costumes of the Kingdom of Naples
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 from the Neapolitan series. The image of Micheletto, a Neapolitan warrior since the reign of the proteges of Napoleon Bonaparte and later of Joachim Murat (1806–1815), was first depicted by B. Pinelli in watercolour in 1807. The composition, in which a young Neapolitan woman is pointing the way to two soldiers, B. Pinelli presented in 1809. It was published as a black and white engraving in the album Raccolta di Cinquanta Costumi Pittoreschi (Collection of Fifty Picturesque Costumes). The second version, which is almost identical to the Lviv one, is known from the albums Costumi dei Regno di Napoli (1815) and Nuova Raccolta di Cinquanta Costumi Pittoreschi (New Collection of Fifty Picturesque Costumes) (1816). The Lviv version is completely replicated as a black and white engraving in the album dated 1817. The composition depicts the moment of a meeting of a young mountain girl with two soldiers standing near the path between mighty boulders and trees; apparently, they are guarding the path. The men are standing and leaning on the fusees, wearing a military uniform with ammunition and pistols on their belts. On the head of one of them is a top hat; the other is wearing a bicorne with a red pompom but without a tricolour cockade. They have high boots on their feet. The girl is looking bravely and openly at the military men. She is dressed in traditional but modest clothes: a light shirt with a yellow and blue apron and a crimson skirt. On her feet, there are traditional ciocie. In her left hand, she is holding a basket covered with greenery. She is probably going to church to consecrate the Easter cake. The figures' clothes are painted in bright, saturated colours, particularly in red, blue, and yellow paints. Trees and boulders are depicted in dark brown and green colours. The distant background with mountain range and greenery of trees is performed in blurred blue and green tones.
Micheletto is a popular name for a soldier of the Neapolitan army in the Kingdom of Naples, a French satellite between 1806 and 1815. After the return to power of the Bourbon dynasty in 1816, the name and form of the soldiers, apparently, did not change.

Inscriptions

In the lower left corner, on the stone depicted in the composition, there is the author's signature Pinelli and date – 1816; below to the right of the centre, there is one more author's signature Pinelli f. [fecit]. In the centre of the engraving, under the image, is the work's title, Micheletti – Costumi del Regno di Napoli. The number "46" is in the upper right corner above the plate.

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Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Micheletti – Costumes of the Kingdom of Naples

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