BARTOLOMEO PINELLI (Rome, 1781 - 1835) Genre scene Oil on canvas, 68X67.5 cm Provenance: Probably collection Elizabeth Foster Duchess of Devonshire The Foster family Collection A. C. May London, Christie's, 18 February 1983, lot 188 (as Bartolomeo Pinelli; see https://rkd.nl/imageslite/1780578) Bartolomeo Pinelli is best known as an illustrator, depicting the popular life and customs of the Roman people. He partly inherited his art from Felice Giani, with whom he collaborated on the frescoes in the Palazzo di Spagna in Rome, proving to be a skilful figure painter. Equally evident in him are the suggestions of 18th century Arcadian culture, but reworked with naturalness, thanks to a drawing and painting spontaneity of remarkable modernity. Twentieth-century critics were not always condescending towards him, sometimes relegating him to the margins of a Souvenir d'Italie-like production, accusing him of depicting a distorted reality of the social conditions of the Papal State. Certainly, Pinelli's Rome sees the waning of the golden age of travellers, the era of the Grand Tour is fading away and, as a result, the judgements on the Eternal City also become caustic as Hippolyte Taine's words recall: 'a provincial city, badly maintained, baroque and filthy'. In Pinelli, the portrayal of history never disregards current events and, with sincere Enlightenment sentiment, tackles the minute everyday life of a Rome observed and described from life, thus arriving at a romantic reading of it.