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19th and Early 20th Century Figurative Art

Wednesday 25 September 2024, 02:30 PM • Milan

230

Giuseppe Sciuti

(Zafferana Etnea 1834 - Roma 1911)

A musical concert

Estimate

€ 6.000 - 8.000

Sold

€ 35.370

The price includes buyer's premium

Information

oil on canvas, unframed
92 x 125 cm
signed lower left: Sciuti

Literature

Second Exhibition of Fine Arts directed by a committee elected by the Royal Academy of Brera, Milan, 1872, p. 29, no. 173;
B. Soster, De Principii tradizionali delle arti figurative, Milan, 1873, pp. 92-94.


Specialist Notes

"A second painting by Sciuti also offers us: a musical concert. The women sitting at the harpsichord and the others standing are elegantly posed. The style, in addition to giving an eloquent word to the concept, also gives a new aspect to beauty and to the expression of the individual characters, according to the action represented, with all the prestiges of plastic and linear science.
Hence the composition can be translated into any poor copy, while the beautiful execution is not translatable, because the style is typical of the artist".
The lucid review of the painting, which appeared in Bartolomeo Soster's powerful volume, De Principii traditional delle arti figurative, which appeared in Milan in 1873, also marks a term ante quem for the creation of Sciuti's extraordinary work, which in fact was presented in Brera in 1872.
The painting, which one is tempted to define as "gattopardesque", opens up to some very interesting considerations advanced by Soster: the fact that the The work could be a sort of handbook for painters who wanted to best convey the drapery, the psychological characteristics of the characters portrayed, the action almost blocked and suspended in time in a sort of anthology of things to do for a painting.