Gypsy Fortune Teller

Bartolomeo Pinelli

Basic information

ID: Г-IV-1729
Author: Bartolomeo Pinelli
Name: Gypsy Fortune Teller
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 was performed for the album Raccolta di Cinquanta Costumi Pittoreschi (Collection of Fifty Picturesque Costumes) published in 1809 in Rome, which depicted three young people – one of them was a horseman on horseback, the other two were standing next to a gypsy woman telling fortunes to one of them. The action was taking place in an architectural background. This composition was later reissued in colour in Leipzig in 1840 under the title La zingara che indovina in Roma. 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. There is no architectural background; only two young men and a horse are before the fortune teller. 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 scheme and contrasts of blue, red, and yellow. The artist focuses on the process of fortune-telling itself. A gypsy woman is trying to prove something to a young man by reading his hand. The second young man is looking at his colleague's hand and not at the fortune teller, as shown in the engraving dated 1815. The second gypsy woman is the same age as the fortune teller, not an older woman, as shown in the etching from the album. In the so-called Lviv version, B. Pinelli demonstrates a qualitatively new composition – light, dynamic, and not overloaded with details.

Inscriptions

In the lower right corner, there is the author's signature Pinelli written in italics and followed by an illegible inscription. In the centre of the engraving, under the image, is the work's title, La zingara che indovina. The number "26" is in the upper right corner above the plate.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Gypsy Fortune Teller

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