FRANCESCO PODESTI (Ancona, 1800 - Rome, 1895) Putti Pencil on paper, 62.3X53 cm (2) Inscribed on verso: Podesti The artist trained in Rome with Gaspare Landi and Vincenzo Camuccini and, faithful to academic ideals, painted a large number of portraits, remarkable for their fresh and frank observation, as well as altarpieces (Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, 1829, Ancona, Cathedral; Martyrdom of St. Stephen, 1851, Rome, Church of St. Paul) and historical and mythological paintings (The Oath of the People of Ancona, 1850, Ancona, Pinacoteca Civica; The Triumph of Venus, 1853, Rome, National Gallery of Modern Art), as well as frescoes (1835, Rome, Villa and Palazzo Torlonia; 1854-70, the Conception Room in the Vatican). There is no doubt, however, that Podesti was a true prodigy. Suffice it to say that in 1818, the Accademia di San Luca awarded him first prize in the drawing competition set up by Canova, in 1820 he again won the Canova competition and in 1822, intending to study the works of the masters of the past directly, he made a first educational trip by travelling to Florence, Pisa and Bologna. His first manner was particularly academic and neo-Renaissance, and then he arrived at a magniloquent style by declining the classicism, inherent to his manner, into a kind of neo-Baroque decorativism, but always with reference to classicist painting and in this case, Albani's models. The drawings under examination are compared to those that the artist produced while designing the frescoes in the Sala di Diana in Palazzo Torlonia in Piazza Venezia in Rome, completed in 1840 and destroyed in 1902. Reference bibliography: Francesco Podesti, exhibition catalogue edited by M. Polverari, Milan 1996, ad vocem M. F. Apolloni, in Francesco Podesti 1996, p. 154 S. Grandesso, La vendita delle disiecta membra di palazzo Torlonia a piazza Venezia, in Capitale e crocevia. Il mercato dell'arte nella Roma sabauda, edited by A. Bacchi, G. Capitelli, Fondazione Federico Zeri, nuovi diari di lavoro, 8, Cinisello Balsamo 2020, pp. 257-265