(Tocco da Casauria 1851 - Francavilla al Mare 1929)
MUSICIAN IN COSTUME PLAYING A MANDOLA
Pen and brown ink, washed in brown. Signed and dedicated in pen Al Comm. Sallazzaro / Michetti; 307 x 213 mm. The dedicatee is probably the painter Demetrio Salazaro (1822-1882) and the drawing is to be dated to the seventies.
PROVENANCE and LITERATURE: originally the drawing was a sheet of the liber amicorum property of Costanza Bougleux. See Christine Farese Sperken, Luciano Buonanno, Paul Nicholls Omaggi, Marchesa!, Acquerelli e Disegni nell'Album di Costanza Bougleux; catalogue of the exhibition at the IV Biennale Internazionale dell'Antiquariato, Antiquari a Napoli; Naples 1994, cat. no. 52, pag. 77, reproduced in colour.
Francesco Paolo Michetti was taught at the Accademia in Naples by Morelli, but he also attended the life drawing classes of Filippo Palizzi, who exercised the greatest influence on his development. In 1871 Michetti made his first trip to Paris. There he came in contact with Fortuny, De Nittis and the dealer Goupil and exhibited at the Salons of 1872 and 1875. In 1883 Michetti purchased a convent in his homeland, Abruzzo, as his home and studio. For the next twenty years, the convent was a meeting place for artists and exponents of culture. Abruzzo was Michetti's emotional and aesthetic inspiration: he combined studies from life and extensive photographic documentation, capturing its people, animals, and local events in emotionally charged paintings with luminous colors and vibrant light.
