Catalogue-2014-Jean-Luc-Baroni

Antonio Mancini
Rome 1852-1930
21
Portrait of Luigino Gianchetti as a Violin Player
Oil on canvas. Inscribed, signed and dated: PARIS/ A. Mancini 78.
92 x 73.5 cms. (36 x 29 in.)
Provenance: Count Albert Cahen in 1881; probably then by descent.
“I have met in Italy the greatest living painter: Antonio Mancini” so pronounced John Singer Sargent 1
whose portrait of Mancini painted some years later is now in the Galleria Nazionale, Rome. Mancini’s
talent was precocious and energetic. He studied in Naples and by 1872, was already exhibiting at the
Paris Salon. Despite being recognised for his extraordinary brilliance, particularly by his fellow painters
and a small number of connoisseurs, Mancini’s life was difficult and he never completely escaped the
privations of his childhood, suffering periods of poverty and even madness. Gladly the last years of his
life were easier, and following the end of the First World War, having settled in Rome, he worked steadily
until his death in 1930.
He is now considered to have been at the forefront of the Verismo movement as well as a supreme
technician for his innovations in the use of thick impasto, an early manifestation of which can be seen in
the treatment of brocade and fabric in the lower right corner of the present picture.
This stunning painting is a portrait of Luigino Gianchetti, called “Luigiello”. Dated 1878, it was painted
by Mancini during his second stay in Paris. The artist had arrived there in March 1877 and the following
month, the young model joined him from Naples. The painter portrays him in the role of a violinist, as
seen in the painting known as Piccolo savoiardo, executed a few years earlier.
1. Antonio Mancini, Boy Playing with Lead Soldiers, the
Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Here the boy is dressed as a saltimbanco,
with a costume in black and red, embellished
with floral decorations. The Mancini archive
holds some important documents which refer
to this work, specifically the correspondence
between the Belgian musician, Count Albert
Cahen d’Anvers, a personal friend and the
artist’s first real patron, who also introduced
him to the Parisian art world and to the wellknown
art dealer Goupil who was so crucial
to the success of the Italian artists working in
Paris. From these documents we learn that
in 1880, two years after Mancini’s return to
Naples, this picture, described as “una mezza
figura di Saltimbanco nero” remained in Paris
with this same Count Cahen. The painter asks
his friend to deliver it to Rey, another fine art
dealer in Paris, in order to pay back a debt for
canvases and paints. Cahen, however, failed to
carry out this request, since two years later he
sent Mancini 500 francs for the sale of this work.
The picture is unpublished and remained in
France till now. Its refined brushwork and
subtle air of introspection reveal it to be one
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