Raffaele Giannetti (Italian, 1837 – 1915)

Raffaele Giannetti (Italian, 1837 – 1915) “Dante e Beatrice” Oil on canvas. 27.5 x 17.75 inches

He was born in Porto Maurizio (today Imperia) on 24 October 1837 to Giovanni and Beatrice Vassallo.

He received his first art education from an amateur painter. The promising talents shown right from the start aroused the interest and patronage of two wealthy locals, Leonardo Gastaldi, his future client, and Francesco Bensa, who directed him towards an academic training.

In 1851 Giannetti attended for a short time the nude school of the Ligurian Academy of Genoa and then moved on to the Albertina Academy of Turin, where he followed, among other things, the courses of C. Arienti.

Later, due to the interest of one of his teachers, G. Marghinotti, he moved to Rome with F. Coghetti, professor of painting at the Accademia di S. Luca, thanks also to a sort of scholarship provided to him by the Municipality of Porto Maurizio.

With the painting Samson condemned to the millstone (location unknown) in 1858 he made his debut at the Genoese Promotrice di belle arti, to which he regularly sent his works until 1880.

The following year he took part in it with The Colloquium of Charles V and Clement VII (Imperia, Pinacoteca civica), commissioned by Gastaldi and inspired by an episode taken from the Siege of Florence by F.G. Guerrazzi.

The work inaugurated a series of canvases, often large in size, of evident historical-literary inspiration, a vehicle of patriotic and Risorgimento content, albeit with a moderate character, intended for rich bourgeois clients.

Based on the meticulous attention to detail and the rendering of historical data, these works are generally characterized by a high level of formal elaboration and by a very accurate sign, as can also be seen in some drawings conserved in the Drawings and Prints Cabinet of the Palazzo Rosso in Genoa, such as Figure of a young man, Figure of a young girl, Woman giving alms and Waiting.

Also from 1859 is the controversial Bernabò Visconti orders the messengers of Innocent VI to swallow the papal bull (location unknown), inspired by the Lombard Stories published by the novel by G.B. Benoni, exhibited at the Genoese Promotrice of 1863.

The painting, known thanks to an engraving (Genoa, Ligustica Academy), appeared to have little regard for the Church and caused Giannetti to be expelled from the territory of the Papal State.

In 1860 he took part in the Genoese Promotrice with Malatesta Baglione traitor of the Florentine Republic, taken from the History of Florence by B. Varchi.

The painting is of unknown whereabouts like Vittore Pisani released from prison exhibited in Venice in 1864: this large canvas, commissioned by Gastaldi and presented the following year at the Promoter of Genoa, earned him the praise of F. Hayez and the nomination honorary member of the Venetian Academy, because “a Genoese painter performed a generous act by exalting with his brush the Venetian hero who successfully stood up to victorious Genoa at the end of the Chioggia war”.

After a first stay in Venice, in the second half of the sixties G. was able to perfect his training in Paris, thanks to a sort of annuity provided to him by Gastaldi.

In Paris he attended the studios of the most famous masters of pompier painting.

From T. Couture he assimilated the taste for historical-mythological themes, built through large compositions inspired by the Venetian sixteenth century and French classicism, as can be seen in the paintings La fine di Messalina (c. 1865-67) and Giulio Cesare (1867).

However, he was no less sensitive to certain exotic-orientalist tendencies, driven by the intellectual search for alternative models to European society, following the example of the various J.-L. Gérôme, T. Chassériau, L. Bonnat.

G. seems to have looked to the latter in particular for the works Scena fiorentina and Messaggero d’amore (c. 1870), where joyful and sensual matrons in costume, and reassuring domestic pictures, seem to be inspired however more by a local folklore than in distant lands.

Strong suggestions were also assimilated by P. Delaroche, a very scrupulous observer of the school of A.-J. Gros, capable of iconographic solutions that concentrate in themselves the maximum dramatic potential.

In addition to the usual historical subjects (for example, Benvenuto Cellini and Francesco I, a work painted in 1867 in Paris, then purchased for the royal house of Bavaria and now of unknown location) from Delaroche Giannetti took that eagerness for documentation which led him to reconstructions plausible, to the scruple of details, to the use of a finished color, increasingly smoother, spread evenly and completed by a patina that erases all traces of brushstrokes.

The assiduous attendance of the Parisian studies earned him participation in the Universal Exposition of 1867, where he presented, alongside the grandiose Death of Alessandro de’ Medici by G. Castagnola, the Meeting of Gaspara Stampa with the Count of Collalto in Murano, inspired by the Veronese.

In 1871 he returned to Venice, where he settled. In the same year, with the gigantic canvas Giovanni Barbarigo frees Maria Queen of Hungary in the year 1380 from the prison of the castle of Castelnuovo, he won the Querini-Stampalia competition.

The work, kept in the same Venetian foundation, also earned him the gold medal at the 1873 Vienna International Exhibition.

This is the largest and most complex composition of armor painted by Giannetti: fourteen figures appear in the foreground, the result of an extraordinary study from life of armor, laboriously investigated and faithfully reproduced, as demonstrated by the numerous preparatory studies conserved at the Academy ligustica of Genoa.

In 1874 he went to Florence in search of documentation for the realization of the Death of Beatrice which was exhibited two years later at the Exhibition of Fine Arts in Naples, together with the Titian painting at the Ferrara court; thanks to the two works, both of unknown location, the painter obtained a prize and, at the behest of D. Morelli, the appointment as emeritus member of the Neapolitan Academy.

His work of those years was characterized by a strong literary evocation, the result of a patriotic pride which sought in the great figures of Italian culture the foundations of a common heritage (Torquato Tasso and Eleonora d’Este, 1873; Dante and Beatrice in the garden of Boboli, 1877; Petrarca and Laura, 1882: all of unknown whereabouts).

Parallel to this vein, he joined that of portraits, working in particular for the Genoese family of the Bertollos; Few specimens of this production are currently known: the Head of a Young Woman in a private collection belongs to the portraiture.

At the turn of the seventies and eighties he made numerous (and unfortunately poorly documented) trips to European cities, where he was able to expand the circle of buyers.

In Great Britain he came into contact with the Victorian painter F. Leighton and with the poet A. Tennyson, from whom he was inspired for the creation of two small canvases – Enoc Arden and Queen Guinevere (location unknown) – purchased by Queen Victoria for the Windsor Collection.

Precisely the remarkable success enjoyed by private collectors throughout Europe is at the basis of the dispersion of most of the artist’s works, whose catalog is now limited to a small number of works.

In the last decade of the century he abandoned painting of historical subjects to turn, with a certain delay, towards the direct study of truth, according to a line of research that had already manifested itself in Liguria since the 1960s by artists such as G Castagnola, F. Semino, N. Barabino, following the Tuscan example of the Macchiaioli.

Paintings such as Stable with yoked ox (Genoa, Modern Art Gallery) belong to this phase; Procession in the countryside (private collection); Country fair (private collection); The return from the Camposanto to Venice and Girl from Lucerne.

In 1890 he returned definitively to Genoa, although from the catalog of the first, and for him only, Venice International Art Exhibition, in which he took part with the not better known Idillio casalingo, it appears that in 1895 he lived in the lagoon city.

Starting in the 1990s he devoted himself to a more reserved activity, outside the official circuits, which allowed him more daring and casual formal research, less constrained in the choice of iconography.

In the Palette of the Modern Art Gallery of Genoa, for example, a woman’s head, a child and a lady with a parasol are sketched with chronicle taste, through “that technique, which repudiated flat, smooth, oleographic surfaces to reach with the torment of the brushstroke, the light and the air, the environment, life”.

Giannetti also turned particular interest to landscape painting, which allowed him to conduct research on the use of light and color, attempting to lighten the palette, eliminating the blacks and browns, so dear to history painting, seeking formal solutions that towards the new painting preached in Florence by the Macchiaioli, in Turin by C. Pittara and, then, by A. Fontanesi, in Genoa by E. Rayper and S. De Avendano.

Grosso noted in this regard: “The technical research of light must have tormented the soul of the artist who studied its effects by decomposing the brushstroke in the compositions only where the sun flickered with modern intentions, not always logically related to the whole pictorial problem of divisionism”, a trend that had already been spreading in Liguria since the early 1990s.

Paintings such as In the lagoon, Bosco and San Martino d’ Albaro belong to his landscape painting of the years between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

He died in Genoa on December 27, 1915.

Eight years later the city dedicated a large retrospective exhibition to him which was set up in Palazzo Rosso.

“The Reception” Oil on canvas. Signed lower left corner. Dated ‘Paris 1853’

Ferdinand Heilbuth (1826-1889) was a German-born French painter.
He was born in Hamburg in 1826, and died in Paris in 1889, having become a French citizen in 1876.

The son of a rabbi, Ferdinand Heilbuth lived and studied in Antwerp, Munich, Düsseldorf and Rome before settling in Paris.
He entered the studio of Paul Delaroche*, remaining there after it was taken over by Charles Gleyre. He made his debut at the Salon in 1853, and his early work consisted of genre pictures and historical paintings, the latter often depicting episodes from the lives of earlier artists.

These works, exhibited at the Paris Salons to great popular success, included such paintings as Rubens Introducing Brouwer to his Wife and The Son of Titian.
He later abandoned such subjects, however, in favor of paintings inspired by a long stay in Rome, and in particular the inner workings and day-to-day life of the Vatican.
Obliged to leave Paris during the Franco-Prussian war, Heilbuth worked in England between 1870-1872, painting scenes of such leisurely plein-air* pursuits as croquet, lawn tennis and boating on the Thames.

He exhibited at the Royal Academy, and among his patrons was Sir Richard Wallace, who purchased four of his paintings which are today in the Wallace Collection in London.
Heilbuth returned to Paris in 1874 and became a naturalized French citizen four years later.
The year after Heilbuth’s death, a sale of the contents of the artist’s studio was held in Paris; the auction included nearly 150 paintings and oil sketches, as well as 69 watercolors and 84 drawings.

Heilbuth regularly submitted to the Paris Salon after 1852, and through these submissions sold many works to the State–works which are now housed in the Museé du Louvre and Musée d’Orsay.
Highly recognized in his lifetime, Heilbuth was awarded* medals in 1857, 1859, 1861, and was lastly decorated with the Légion d’honneur in 1861 and promoted to Officier in 1881.
He worked within illustrious groups of French painters*, participating in 1865 in an exclusive exhibition of the Cercle de l’union des arts on the rue Choiseul, along with Delacroix*, Decamps, Diaz, Troyon, Meissonier, Ribot, Belly, Daubigny, Millet* and Gérôme*.
In addition to his success on the continent, Heilbuth also exhibited in London at the Royal Academy and at the Grovesnor Gallery (1871-1878).

“Storyteller” Oil on Canvas. Signed lower left. 27.5 x 22.5 inches

Adolf Franz Christian Ritter Schreitter von Schwarzenfeld (German, 1854 – 1923) Genre painter.

“Church Interior with Armed Intruders. Oil on canvas. 56 x 41.25 inches.

Carl Friedrich Heinrich Werner (4 October 1808 – 10 January 1894) was a German watercolor painter. Born in Weimar, Werner studied painting under Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld in Leipzig. He switched to studying architecture in Munich from 1829 to 1831, but thereafter returned to painting. He won a scholarship to travel to Italy, where he ended up founding a studio in Venice and remaining until the 1850s, making a name for himself as a watercolor painter. He exhibited around Europe, in particular travelling often to England, where he exhibited at the New Watercolour Society.

He travelled through Spain in 1856-1857, in 1862 to Palestine and then to Egypt, and to the latter country he returned for a longer trip in 1864. Particularly notable were his watercolors in Jerusalem, where he was one of the few non-Muslims able to gain access to paint the interior of the Dome of the Rock. He published a large body of work in London as Jerusalem and the Holy Places, and some more watercolors from Egypt in 1875 as Carl Werner’s Nile Sketches. He later travelled to Greece and Sicily, and became a professor at the Leipzig Academy, dying in Leipzig in 1894.

“Valencianas”. Oil on canvas. Signed in the lower right corner. 23.25 x 15.25 inches.

Eduardo Sánchez Solá (Madrid, 1869 – Granada, 1949) was a Spanish painter.

He studied at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts as a student of Alejandro Ferrant and Luis Taberner. He was a professor at the School of Arts and Crafts in Granada and a contributor to the magazine La ilustración Española y Americana. He participated in several National Exhibitions, in which he was awarded honorable mention in 1895; third class medal in 1897, for the canvas “Sad news” and in 1899 for “El destete ”; decoration in 1901 and honorable mention in Decorative Art in 1904. He also exhibited in the Regional Modern Art of Granada, in the Artistic Center (1942) and in Linares (1943).

He specialized in oil paintings where he reflected game scenes of the altar boys of the time inside Andalusian churches. In them, the artist was able to accurately capture the transmission of the movement of children in these circumstances, generally playing with each other. He is known as “The painter of the altar boys”.

“The Presentation”, Rome, 1897. Oil on canvas. Signed, dated and located in the lower right corner. 22 x 33.5 in.

Salvatore Frangiamore presents us with a virtuoso scene contextualized in a palatial interior decorated, mainly, by a stone fireplace of Renaissance style, a rich war tapestry on the wall and a curtain that acts as a backdrop. Next to a table dressed with food, several figures are placed around a prelate, with a lady presenting her daughter to this distinguished personage, under the attentive gaze of the rest of the spectators. The work is notable for its detail and for the magnificent depiction of the richly embroidered and delicately woven costumes.

Born into a family of modest means, Salvatore Frangiamore showed a marked aptitude for drawing at an early age, thus attracting the curiosity of many people in his native country, in particular that of the then mayor Giuseppe Giudici, a future member of the Kingdom’s Parliament and brother of the well-known scholar Paolo Emiliani Giudici. In 1883 he took part in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Rome, the inaugural exhibition at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, exhibiting “A Summer Storm”.

Among his most successful works were his portraits (in addition to those of King Umberto I and Queen Margherita, we remember those of the Honorable Giuseppe Giudici, of Paolo Emiliani Giudici, of Baroness Costanza Moncada Mistretta, the barons Vincenzo and Salvatore Mistretta, the gentleman Vincenzo Sorce Malaspina, his sister Luigina (pencil drawing), the ministers Michele Amari and Nicolò Gallo, Professor Francesco Durante. He also excelled as a genre painter of paintings set in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, with works such as “Lucia and the Unnamed”, “The Chess Game” and “The Cardinal’s Visit”.

He is currently represented in the National Gallery in London, as well as in numerous private collections throughout Europe.

“A Lady at the Spinning Wheel” Oil on canvas.

Henri Jean Augustin de Braekeleer (11 June 1840 – 20 July 1888) was a Belgian painter. He was born and died in Antwerp. He was trained in drawing by his father Ferdinand de Braekeleer, a well-known genre painter, and his uncle Jan August Hendrik Leys.

Braekeleer entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp) in 1854. Although he remained a student there until 1861, he publicly exhibited his paintings for the first time in 1858, when Reaper and Washerwoman (locations unknown) were shown at the Antwerp Salon. In 1863, he went to Germany and, in 1864, to the Netherlands, studying works by 16th- and 17th-century painters in both countries. The influence of Johannes Vermeer was especially important, seen in one of de Braekeleer’s most characteristic subjects: a single person absorbed in a quiet activity, shown in an interior lit by a window.

In 1869, de Braekeleer signed a contract with the Belgian art dealer, Gustave Coûteaux, a relationship that continued until 1876. In the same year, his uncle Baron Leys died. The two events combined to create the most productive period in de Braekeleer’s career, when he made the works for which he is best known and received public recognition for them. In 1872, he received a gold medal at the Salon in Brussels for The Geographer and The Lesson and, in 1873, a gold medal at the International Exhibition in Vienna for The Painter’s Studio and Grandmother’s Birthday Celebration (all in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels).

Because of depression, he stopped painting between 1879 and 1881. When he started to work again, he used a shorter and more visible brushstroke, perhaps as a result of the influence of the Impressionists. Vincent van Gogh mentioned de Braekeleer in letters to his brother Theo several times, referring to him as an artist he liked as well as one afflicted by mental illness.

Jules Jacques Veyrassat (French, 1828 – 1893), oil on canvas depicting the suffering of Christ on the cross while his mother weeps at his feet, signed “J. Veyrassat” lower right.  32″ x 32″

Jules Jacques Veyrassat (12 April 1828, Paris – 2 July 1893, Paris) was a French painter and engraver; associated with the Barbizon school. Most of his works feature animals.

He studied in Paris with Henri Lehmann and exhibited his first works at the Salon in 1848. He began to work as an engraver in the 1860s, after becoming associated with the École d’Écouen and studying with Pierre Édouard Frère. It was, in fact, Frère and Charles-François Daubigny who encouraged him to take up that art.

Between 1866 and 1869, he was presented with several awards for his engravings. Later, he collaborated with the British art critic, Philip Gilbert Hamerton, on two of his books devoted to the topic: Chapters on Animals (1874), with Karl Bodmer, and the third edition of Etching and Etchers (1880), which featured the works of many notable artists, such as James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Jozef Israëls and Alphonse Legros. He also produced engravings for a series of albums published by Alfred Cadart.

He was named a Knight in the Legion of Honor in 1878.

He was also associated with the Barbizon school, two of whose members, Charles Jacque and Jean-François Millet, had an influence on his style. As a result, his landscapes all depict some aspect of life in rural France. It would appear that he never travelled to any other countries.

He died in Paris and was interred at the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise.

His works may be seen at museums throughout France, as well as at the Manchester Art Gallery, the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts and the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.

“The Last Jewel”. Oil on canvas, sig. “Carl Spielter Bremen” 21.5 x 27.25in.

Carl Johann Spielter decides (German, 1851-1922) in 1875 to become a painter and settles in Munich. He began his painting training at the Royal Trade School with Ferdinand Barth and continued his studies at the Royal Academy of Arts with Gyula Benczúr, Otto Seitz and Gabriel von Max on April 24, 1876.

From 1881, Spielter continued to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he became a master pupil of Hans Makart. He remained in Vienna for almost ten years. He made study trips to Italy, Turkey and Egypt. With his brother-in-law, the landscape painter Julius Köhnholz, he painted the parts of the new steamer “Saale” in Bremen in 1886 on behalf of the North German Lloyd. In Vienna, in 1889, he married his wife Veronica, born in Hungary. by Gavenda. In 1891 he went to Berlin for two years, and in 1893 he was back in Bremen.

Francesco Coleman (Italian, 1851 – 1918) Watercolor. Signed middle right. “Italian Cavalier Drinking Wine” 20 x 15 in.

Francesco Coleman (1851–1918) was an Italian painter. He was the son of the English painter Charles Coleman and brother of the better-known Italian painter Enrico Coleman. He was known as a painter, in oil and in watercolor, of the people and landscapes of the Campagna Romana and the Agro Pontino, and of oriental subjects.

Francesco Coleman was born in Rome on 23 July 1851. He was the sixth of eight children of the English painter Charles Coleman, who had come to Rome in 1831 and settled there permanently in 1835, and his wife Fortunata Segadori, a famous artist’s model from Subiaco, whom he had married in 1836. He studied painting in his father’s studio and showed a particular aptitude for watercolors. He shared this studio at via Margutta 33 with his father and brother throughout his life. He ceased all artistic activity after the death of Enrico in 1911.

He died on 9 January 1918 at his home in via Valenziani, near the Porta Salaria. He was buried in the Cimitero del Verano.