Eugenio Cecconi | Donna in lettura

Eugenio Cecconi nasce a Livorno l'8 settembre 1842 da famiglia benestante. Viene avviato, per volontà del padre, agli studi giuridici presso la Facoltà di Giurisprudenza dell'Università di Pisa anche se la sua reale passione si dimostra quasi immediatamente nel campo dell'arte.

Titian | An Idyll: A Mother and a Halberdier in a Wooded Landscape, 1505-1510

This painting is informed by the bucolic poetry of such classical sources as Virgil’s Georgics and Eclogues and Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

The subject of printed, painted, and drawn images, landscapes of shaded groves, musicians, shepherds, and languid nymphs were a quintessentially Venetian genre in the early sixteenth century.

Titian | An Idyll: A Mother and a Halberdier in a Wooded Landscape, 1505-1510 | Harvard Art Museums

The most celebrated, and perhaps most enigmatic, of these is Giorgione’s Tempest, which shows the same configuration of a seated woman and a standing figure found here.

The purpose, subject, and meaning of these evocative paintings is still unclear, leading some scholars to argue that they inaugurated a new genre of landscape painting, one based on secular rather than sacred sources. | Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum

Allan Douglas Davidson | An English Yum-Yum, 1906

"An English Yum-Yum: my lady lights the sombre day: A scene from The Mikado", signed and dated 'Allan Davidson 1906', belongs to a tradition going back to Whistler's Japanese subjects of the 1860s and '70s, by way of paintings inspired by visits to Japan by Whistler's pupil Mortimer Menpes (1887), Alfred East (1889) and the two 'Glasgow Boys', George Henry and E.A. Hornel (1893-4).

The picture's title is taken from Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy opera The Mikado, first staged in March 1885. | Source: © Christie's

Leonor Fini (1907-1996)

Leonor Fini (Buenos Aires, 1907 - Parigi, 1996) nacque da padre argentino di origini beneventane e madre triestina di origini tedesche.

In seguito alla separazione, madre e figlia rientrarono a Trieste nel 1909 ospiti dello zio Ernesto Braun.

La bambina fu al centro di una strenua lotta tra i genitori.

La madre occultò la bambina adottando la tecnica del travestimento: Leonor Fini in futuro adotterà spesso, anch'essa, questo stratagemma per scandalizzare gli abitanti dei paesini del Carso sloveno o per divertire amici e colleghi.

Rosso pompeiano | I colori degli antichi Romani

Il rosso pompeiano si riferisce al colore del pigmento minerale a base di ossido di ferro con una tonalità vicina all'ocra rossa, così chiamato per il suo uso comune nell'antica pittura romana e per il fatto che è abbondante nei murales di Pompei.

Studi hanno dimostrato che le pareti con sfondi rosso pompeiano erano dipinte in vari modi, di cui l'uso del cinabro era il più costoso.

Con questo termine si definisce anche il colore rosso ocra di un intonaco caratteristico della ceramica romana.

Coordinate del colore

HEX #A22E37

sRGB1 (r;g; b) (162; 46; 55)

CMYK2 (c;m;y;k) (0; 72; 66; 36)

HSV (h;s;v) (355°; 72%; 64%)

Canaletto (1697-1768)

Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto, was a Venetian painter famous for his landscapes, or Vedute of Venice.

He was also an important printmaker in etching. His pupils included his nephew Bernardo Bellotto, Francesco Guardi, Michele Marieschi, Gabriele Bella and Giuseppe Moretti.

The painter, Giuseppe Bernardino Bison was a follower of his style. Joseph Smith sold much of his collection to George III, creating the bulk of the large collection of Canalettos owned by the Royal Collection.

There are many examples of his work in other British collections, including several at the Wallace Collection and a set of 24 in the dining room at Woburn Abbey. Canaletto's views always fetched high prices, and as early as the 18th century Catherine the Great and other European monarchs vied for his grandest paintings.

Claude Monet | Morning on the Seine near Giverny, 1897

Begun in 1896, Monet’s Mornings on the Seine series was not completed until 1897 because of inclement weather.

Having patiently scouted out views along the river, Monet then painted the pictures from a boat that he had converted into a floating studio.

For an extended period he rose by dawn in order to paint the changing effects of light as the sun came up.

He then lined up the canvases on easels in his studio to complete them together as a series.

Fifteen were shown at the Galerie Georges Petit in 1898. | © Metropolitan Museum of Art

Claude Monet | Morning on the Seine near Giverny, 1897 | Metropolitan Museum of Art