A Selection of master drawings 2014

14. Francesco Salghetti - Drioli
Zara 1811 - 1877
Hector reproaching Paris
Pen, ink, watercolours heightened with lead white
236 x 336 mm. (9¼ x 13 ¼ in.)
Inscriptions
bottom left corner, in ink, F. Salghetti f. 1831 Roma; centre bottom, in ink, Ettore che rimprovera Paride.
Provenance
Private collection.
Francesco Salghetti-Drioli was born in Zara in Dalmatia,
which was at the time part of Italy. He was the leading
protagonist of the Dalmatian academic art scene and the
first professional artist of the region. He trained in the
most important Italian Accademie and was acquainted
with the most influential artists and intellectuals of his
time such as Overbeck, Grigoletti and Tischbein. After a
first sojourn in Rome, where he nourished himself with
classicism and the antique, he travelled to Venice absorbing
the taste of local tradition: its substance, colour and light.
He then settled in Florence, favouring Purism and looking
back to the so-called ‘primitive’ artists. He continued
to travel throughout Italy, to Milan, Bologna, Parma,
Padova and again to Rome. After twenty years of studies
in Italy, in 1844 he returned to Zara to dedicate himself
to his family business but he never ceased to paint. He
was a friend of Niccolò Tommaseo, writer and intellectual
who advised him on subject matter and content and he
was also the advisor of the Croatian Bishop and patriot,
Strossmayer. Salghetti-Drioli mainly executed historicalallegorical
and mythological works. He was admired by
his contemporaries, but it is only in the last decade that
his work has been reconsidered by scholars and critics. His
paintings and drawings are held in Italian and Croatian
churches, collections and museums. 1 In Rome the young
Salghetti-Drioli was a pupil of Vincenzo Camuccini,
Giovanni Silvagni and Tommaso Minardi but he was also
in contact with Horace Vernet, who invited him to join
the French Academy. The present drawing, signed and
dated 1831, was executed in the months of November to
December in Rome, where he is recorded as being enrolled
at the Accademia of San Luca. According to the sources,
he was first admitted to the ‘scuola libera del nudo’ on 13 th
November and then to the school of “Storia, mitologia
e costumi”. 2 It is here that he learned the accuracy of
drawing, based on the forms and figures of classical art and
from the study of models. He also learnt how to conceive
and create compositions of allegorical, biblical, historical
and mythological subjects. In addition to the influence of
the antique, the present sheet also shows his ambition to
follow the best examples of Neoclassical art. This is evident
in the well-balanced composition, which recalls David, and
the sculptural rendering of the anatomical details that are
reminiscent of the sculptures of Canova and Thorvaldsen,
then Professor at the Roman Academy.
The subject of Hector reproaching Paris is taken from
book VI of Homer’s Iliad and was one of the most popular
Neoclassical themes. Gaspare Landi and Pietro Benvenuti 3
had also been inspired by this theme, however it was
the work of two painters at the height of their career,
his master Tommaso Minardi and Francesco Hayez that
influenced and gave impetus to Salghetti-Drioli’s drawing.
In 1830, Hayez painted the same topic with a very
similar composition including the Doric columns in the
background and a statue on a pedestal behind the group
of figures on the right. (Fig. 1) Exhibited in Milan and
reproduced in printed journals, the painting captured
the attention of the critics and must have been well
1. Francesco Hayez, Hector reproaching Paris seated in the gynaceum,
1830, oil on canvas, Venice, Private Collection.