Angelo (Angiolo) Torchi (1856-1915) - Ritratto di ragazza

Angelo (Angiolo) Torchi (Massa Lombarda, November 8, 1856 – Massa Lombarda, December 6, 1915), Portrait of a Girl (the sole work measures 32x26 cm), oil on canvas, signed at the bottom left. A refined work by the Romagnol artist who moved to Florence at a very young age and was a representative of the Macchiaioli school with divisionist overtones, especially in the early to mid period of his activity. The work is being published in a volume by the La Cassa di Ravenna banking group analyzing painting between Romagna and Florence at the End of the Nineteenth Century and the early Twentieth. Angelo Torchi was born in Massa Lombarda (Ravenna) into an affluent family of landowners, the second of four children, to Countess Maria Laderchi of Faenza origin and to the lawyer Gaetano, who had held the offices of Prior and mayor between 1862 and 1874. In 1869 he moved to Florence, enrolling in the Artistic Institute founded that year, where his teachers were Karlo Markó and Lorenzo Gelati, exponents of the Scuola di Staggia who educated students to reproduce subjects in the open air, a theme akin to the verismo standards of the Macchiaioli movement. He spent 1880 with his friend Attilio Pratella in Naples, where he came into contact with the realist art of the local school under Alceste Campriani, belonging to the Scuola di Resìna, also tied to verist themes. Returned to Florence, in 1883 he participated in the Promotrice di Brera with Sole di marzo, In risaia, Napoli alla Villa Reale and Motivo di Capri; in 1885 with Aprile sull'Arno, Maggio sull'Arno and In risaja, after the harvest; the following year he was at the Livorno Exhibition, in close contact with the Macchiaioli milieu he frequented at the Il Volturno tavern on Via S. Gallo. He frequented Telemaco Signorini, Silvestro Lega, Francesco Gioli and art critic Diego Martelli (whom he hosted at Castiglioncello), who urged him to send Ortolane, Il Gabbro and Sull’Arno to the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889, a city where he came into contact with the works of Impressionist and Pointillist artists. In this period he painted between the Livorno hinterland (La vallata del Gabbro) and his native Romagna countryside (Strada campestre a Massa Lombarda). In 1890 he traveled to London, where he came into contact with the works of John Constable; returning to Florence, he illustrated the novella Perla in Renato Fucini’s Le veglie di Neri, while the following year he was present at the Florence Promotrice exhibition with Impressione di un mercato, a work of clear impressionist imprint. During this period he stayed in Genoa with friends Plinio Nomellini and Giorgio Kienerk, abandoned the post-Macchiaioli style and embraced the divisionist poetics, evident in Granturco sull'aia proposed at the Livornese Exhibition of 1892. Between 1895 and 1896 he was deeply shaken by the deaths of friends Silvestro Lega and Diego Martelli and returned to Massa Lombarda, where he largely reproduced landscapes of his homeland. He took part in the National Exhibition of Turin in 1898, in the Venice Biennale exhibitions in 1899 and 1901 with the divisionist Mattino di settembre, in 1903 with Nuvoli di primavera sul verde, in 1905 with Paesaggio, in 1912 with Pagliai al sole and in 1914 with Ritratto di vecchio, the last appearance of the living artist. He died in Massa Lombarda in 1915 of a cardiocirculatory collapse and was buried in the local cemetery; in 1921 his remains were moved to the cemetery of S. Miniato al Monte in Florence, where he rests beside his parents.

Estimation:€800

Voir tous les objets deCatawikiouAutres