.png)
SILVER Seller in Milano, Italy
Etching "Natural portrait of one of the Riali household" by Michelangelo Gualandi (Bologna 1793 - Bologna 1887). Size: 211 x 170 mm. Overall sheet size: 292 x 213 mm. Collector, historian and scholar, born into a family that belonged to the small merchant class, Michelangelo was destined for trade. His studies are therefore oriented towards languages and accounting, this training will lead him to travel, create profitable international contacts and will give him the opportunity to frequent archives and libraries essential for his studies and publications. Having left the commercial activity to his brother, he dedicated himself to the study of history and the fine arts. Collector of antiquities and painting, mediator for foreign collectors in Italy, he deserves the credit for having brought together the collection of the artist Pelagio Pelagi to the City of Bologna. Starting from 1840, he published the original Italian Memoirs concerning the fine arts; another interesting publication by him is the New collection of letters on Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. The sheet reproduces a drawing believed to be an autograph by Elisabetta Sirani (Bologna 1638 – Bologna 1665) at the time kept in the Cav. Carlo Ernesto Liverati, a Bolognese history painter but resident in Florence, as we read engraved in the upper part of the plate. In the composition we see an elderly woman moving from right to left; eyes wide open, aquiline nose and face furrowed by wrinkles, she is wrapped in a dress that is too large for her build. A wide-brimmed hat rests on long, messy hair. The inscription on the back of the drawing is engraved on the plate: "Portrait from nature of one of the Riali family, original by the famous Elisabetta Sirani, for whom she was poisoned by Reali himself, and a famous painter was missing in her prime" . Elisabetta Sirani was in fact poisoned by a house servant. On the sheet, in the lower white margin, a handwritten dedication in pen by the author: "To my friend Luciano the first essay of an engraving that will be part of the Memoirs, who will publish his Michelangelo on the life of Elisabetta Sirani. 1841. Bologna 15" . The reference in the dedication is to the volume actually published by Michelangelo. A reproduction of the engraving was published in Emporio Artistico – Letterario ossia Raccolte di Amene readings of education and family, volume V, Venice 1853.
ID: 11318-1683730255-63234
