Family Combing Parasites (Picturesque Group)

Bartolomeo Pinelli

Basic information

ID: Г-IV-1760
Author: Bartolomeo Pinelli
Name: Family Combing Parasites (Picturesque Group)
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 work is from the Roman series. Similar variants to the Lviv one are known from engravings dated 1809 and 1815. The Lviv composition is simplified; less attention is paid to architectural details and characters' figures. It is a multi-figure composition of a grotesque type. In the centre, a mother sits on the podium by the wall, picking head lice from her son's hair. He closed his eyes and put his head on her knees. In her turn, the eldest daughter is looking for the parasites in her mother's head; she is standing on the podium behind her. The youngest child, tied with a strap to a rod nailed into the wall, looks exceptionally funny; the girl is sucking her finger thoughtfully, pulling the strap loop with her weight. An ordinary and a bit damaged wall of the house, with fragments of windows at the top, serves as the background for the main part of the work. Only on the left, where the wall ends, is a woman depicted with two spindles in her hands; she is wearing a traditionally folded flattop headscarf. Her figure is in the centre of an independent composition separated from the wall by a fragment of a tree with a green crown and a blue mountain top in the background. The grey and white and bright colours of clothes, namely blue, yellow, red and crimson, highlight the figures. The wall of the house and the ground are depicted in blurred ocher and pink, as well as grey and blue tones.

Inscriptions

In the lower left corner, there is the author's signature Pinelli written in italics, date – 1816, and the place of performance – Roma (illegibly). In the centre of the engraving, under the image, is the work's title Gruppo Pittoresco. The number "48" is in the upper right corner above the plate.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Family Combing Parasites (Picturesque Group)

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