Antonio Mancini

Barone Berlingieri;
Papocchia;
Tullio Giosi Naples, or Galleria Giosi, Rome;
Anonymous sale, Rome, Minerva Auctions, 26 May 2016, lot 189 (for €136,800);
There acquired.

Rome, Prima Quadriennale d’Arte Nazionale, January - June 1931, no. 24;
Naples, Castelnuovo, Mostra Della Pittura Napoletana del ‘600- ‘700- ‘800, March - June 1938.

N.G. Fiumi, “Ritratti di Antonio Mancini,” in The Studio, vol. 95, no. 419, February 1928, p. 89;
A. Lancellotti, Antonio Mancini, Istituto Nazionale “Luce,” Bergamo 1931, cat. no. 4;
A. Lancellotti, La prima quadriennale d’arte nazionale, exhibition catalogue, Rome 1931, p. 21, reproduced;
C. Lorenzetti, “La giovinezze di Antonio Mancini e il Reale Istituto di Belle arti di Napoli,” in Rassegna dell’Istruzione Artistica, II, May 1931, no. 3, p. 156;
Prima quadriennale d’Arte nazionale- Mostra retrospettiva di Antonio Mancini 1852-1930, exhibition catalogue, Rome 1931, cat. no. 24, reproduced (inside cover);
P. Scarpa, “Capolavori di Antonio Mancini- alla 'Quadriennale' Romana d’Arte,” in Il Messaggero, 6 May 1931, p. 3;
A.M. Comanducci, I pittori italiani dell’Ottocento, Milan 1934, p. 389;
Piccola guida della mostra della pittura napoletana del ’600-‘700-‘800, exhibition catalogue, Naples 1938, p. 110;
M. Borghi, “Galleria d’artisti italiani. Antonio Mancini,” in Rivista delle Province, Rome, a. LII,  no. 1, January 1960, p. 47;
A. Schettini, La pittura napoletana dell’800, Naples 1967, vol. II, p. 172.

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work is in lovely condition. The canvas is unlined. The surface is stable and fresh. The work is clean. The only retouches are a few spots in the upper left background beneath the inscription. The work should be hung as is.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Antonio Mancini was a precocious child, admitted to the institute of fine arts in Naples by the age of twelve and by the 1870s travelled to Paris to establish himself in the center of the art world.  He soon exhibited at the Salon, met Edgar Dégas and Edouard Manet, and befriended Ernst Meissonier and John Singer Sargent, who famously declared Mancini the greatest living painter. Dated 1880, the present work was painted two years after the artist’s final return to Naples from Paris. The bright colors and outdoor setting indicate that Mancini executed the painting with the French market still in mind, where he was represented by Adolphe Goupil alongside his fellow Italian artists, Giovanni Boldini and Vittorio Corcos. Like Boldini, Mancini is best known for the bravura brushwork that balances painterly abstraction with realism, but Mancini’s glistening and thick impasto is particularly daring and innovative. The visionary artist occasionally enhanced his paintings’ surfaces by adding pieces of metal foil, glass and other materials to his medium. In the present work, a young brunette, who appears in other paintings from the period, gazes demurely at the viewer from under her straw hat adorned with flowers. He conveys the sitter’s inner thoughts in the finely painted nuances of her active expression. She is framed by a dense and sketchy array of leaves, and her visage appears in soft focus behind the pronounced ivy leaves and grasses in the foreground. With his assured and fluid brushwork, Mancini boldly applies thick impasto to highlight the right side of his subject’s face, adding a brilliant passage of red to the underside of the woman’s hat, which reflects on her rosy cheeks and mirrors her coral colored lips.

This well-documented painting was first exhibited in Rome just a year after Mancini’s death in 1930.



This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the painter by Cinzia Virno, De Luca Editori d'Arte Roma.