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SILVER Seller in Milano, Italy
Luigi Ceroni (Rome 1815 - Rome 1894) Roman engraver, translation engraver, reproduced famous paintings by Beato Angelico, Piero della Francesca, Raphael, Guido Reni and others. In 1857 we find him in Paris, where he studied Marcantonio Raimondi and specialized in portraits. In 1864, he executed a series of forty engravings with portraits-medallions from enamels by Jean Petitot (Geneva 1607 - Vevey 1691) followed by six plates with Les Amours de Louis XV. With his participation in the Esposizione romana in 1871, his reputation as an etcher grew and the Calcografia Nazionale offered him to complete the copperplate of the Disputa del Sacramento, by Raphael, begun by Calamatta but left unfinished. This was followed by the copper of the School of Athens, begun by Mercuri, but left unfinished in 1877. Both branches are today kept at the Calcografia Nazionale. This print is a splendid translation of the 1841 oil painting by Francesco Hayez (1791 - 1882) now in the Pinacoteca di Brera (inv. no. 859). The painting was commissioned to Hayez by Manzoni's second wife, Teresa Borri Stampa, and her stepson Stefano Stampa, who donated it to the Brera when he died. Despite Manzoni's reluctance to have himself portrayed, they persuaded him to undergo no less than 15 sittings in order to obtain a more 'human' portrait, thanks to Hayez's scruples to render everything from life. In the sheet, the man of letters is depicted seated with his legs crossed in a composed but intimate pose; in his left hand he does not show a snuffbox as in the previous official portraits of The Betrothed. His friend Gaetano Cattaneo, in a letter to Francesco Gonin, notes how Alessandro is portrayed 'in a natural position, and his habitual one, and with that face... all gentle... a forehead in which one can read all that abundance of thoughts and ideas'. The tone is subdued but solemn, familiar, which may be at the root of the portrait's not-so-immediate fortune, later to become popular. Indeed, the subscription for an intaglio translation promoted by Stefano Stampa in the pages of the newspaper La perseveranza was not successful. In the subscription Stefano Stampa promises 'engraved by a skilful artist (whose friend the great Rosmini had already had engraved)'. The engraving that translates the portrait of Rosmini painted by Hayez is by Luigi Ceroni. Therefore, despite the negative outcome of the subscription, Ceroni executed the engraving, the preparatory watercolour and a specimen are conserved at the Brera Academy (folders 26, n 33, 38, n 19). The chiaroscuro intensity makes the figure stand out from the background left neutral. At the bottom beyond the image engraved in type: FRANC. HAYEZ DIP., L. CERONI INC. At centre facsimile of Alessandro Manzoni's signature. Excellent impression, intense blacks on Chinese paper applied to thicker card. Very good condition, good margins. Another specimen is in the Achille Bertelli Collection of Prints. Bibliography: L. Servolini, Dizionario illustrato degli incisori italiani, Milan 1955, p. 192; Gozzoli-Mazzocca, Hayez, Milan, Electa, 1983, n 124; Fernando Mazzocca, Francesco Hayez catalogo ragionato, Milan Federico Motta editore, 1994, pp 267-268 n 248.
ID: 11318-1686044609-65345
