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a painting of a woman in a fur coat with her hands on her chinan old wooden frame with a painting hanging on the wall
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ANTONIO MANCINI Albano Laziale, 1852 – Rome, 1930 Ophelia (study) Signed ‘A Mancini’ top right Oil on canvas, 61 x 48 cm The painting has been declared to be of extraordinary historical and artistic interest and is subject to a notification regime; it may therefore not be exported from Italy. Provenance: Venice, Curtis Collection Exhibitions: First International Art Exhibition of the City of Venice, Venice, 1895 Bibliography: First International Art Biennale of the City of Venice, Venice 1895, p. 110, no. 205 Second International Art Exhibition of the City of Venice, exhibition catalogue, Venice 1897, p. 117 (Introduction to the catalogue) E. Giannelli, Living Neapolitan Artists. Painters, Sculptors, Engravers, Architects, Naples 1916, p. 306 D. Varagnolo, ‘Antonio Mancini in Venice: Dates and Memories’, in *Ateneo Veneto*, Year CXXXII, vol. 128, nos. 1–2, Venice 1941, p. 3 A. Schettini, Mancini, Naples 1953, pp. 169, 239 (as a work of unknown location) D. Cecchi, Antonio Mancini, Turin 1966, p. 155 A. Schettini, Neapolitan Painting of the 19th Century, vol. II, Naples 1967, p. 170 D. Cecchi, ‘Men and Stories of Palazzo Barbaro’, in *Il Gazzettino di Venezia*, 17 September 1971, p. 3 A. Don Riccardo, *Art Catalogue of the Nineteenth Century. ‘Vesuvius’ by Neapolitan Painters, vol. II, Rome 1973, p. 287 A. Schettini, Neapolitan Painting of the 19th Century, 4 vols., vol. III, Naples 1973, p. 170 P. Ricci, Art and Artists in Naples (1800–1943), Naples 1981, p. 69 (erroneously states that it was exhibited in Venice in 1897) Group photograph. Antonio Mancini and friends in Minori in the summer of 1922, *Minori Aula Consiliare*, exhibition catalogue edited by M. Bignardi, Ravello 1992, p. 57 M. Quesada, M. Nicoletti, P. Pancotto, Museo d’Arte italiana di Lima, Venice 1994, p. 163 T. Zambrotta, in *General Catalogue of the Municipal Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art*, edited by G. Bonasegale, Rome 1994, p. 544 M. Castellarin, in *Antonio Mancini/Rebellious Genius*, Milan: Bottegantica, exhibition catalogue edited by E. Savoia and S. Bosi, Crocetta del Montello 2016, pp. 28, 30 C. Virno, *Antonio Mancini. Catalogue raisonné of his work. Vol. I, Oil paintings on canvas, panel, paper and mirror, Rome 2019, p. 271, no. 411 One of the most significant encounters during Antonio Mancini’s artistic maturity (Rome, 1852; 1930) was his encounter with Daniel Sargent Curtis, an American collector and refined patron of the arts, who, together with his wife Ariana Wormeley Curtis, transformed Palazzo Barbaro on the Grand Canal into one of the most important centres of international culture in Venice. The relationship between the artist and the Curtis family went beyond the traditional relationship between painter and patron, taking the form of a profound cultural affinity within the refined international milieu that animated the Venetian residence. Particularly significant was the bond with Ralph Wormeley Curtis, the son of Daniel and Ariana, a painter and passionate art connoisseur, who had his own studio at Palazzo Barbaro. A relationship of mutual respect and frequent association developed between the two artists, fuelled by exchanges in their respective studios and by their shared membership of that international Venetian circle which brought together figures such as John Singer Sargent, Henry James, James McNeill Whistler and Ettore Tito. For Mancini, Palazzo Barbaro represented not only a prestigious venue for commissions but also a privileged setting for engagement with an international figurative culture. It was here, between April and May 1895, that he painted the famous portrait of John Lowell Gardner Jr., now housed at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, whilst the Gardner family were staying in Venice. John Gardner’s notes recall the sitting sessions and the convivial moments spent with Mancini and Ettore Tito in the palace’s rooms. Presented at the First International Art Exhibition of the City of Venice in 1895 (no. 205), the painting shown here is listed in the catalogue as ‘Ophelia (study)’. Together with the ‘Roman Boy’ (cf. Virno, cat. 332), which was also exhibited at the same exhibition and listed in the catalogue as belonging to Daniel Sargent Curtis, the work already belonged to the Curtis family’s Venetian collection, as documented by archival sources, although this provenance was not explicitly stated in the exhibition entry. The designation ‘study’ might explain the absence of the characteristic grid pattern, a frequent feature in Mancini’s paintings of the 1890s. Through this technique, the artist constructed the composition using individual fields of colour, which achieved full visual unity only when viewed from a distance. In letters addressed to collectors, and in particular to Daniel Curtis, Mancini explained his painting method and emphasised the importance of viewing his works from the correct distance. Curtis, whilst appreciating its innovative power, preferred paintings devoid of visible grid marks, asking the artist for works that were ‘simple and large’ and ‘without a grid’. The work depicts a female figure in half-length, bathed in raking light, identified as Agrippina Ruggeri, one of Mancini’s most frequently portrayed models. The young woman appears with her head encircled by a wreath of leaves that also extends over her dress, transforming her into a figure suspended between portrait and allegory. The reference to Shakespeare’s Ophelia emerges in her withdrawn posture, her clasped hands and the pensive, melancholic expression on her face. The composition fully reveals the most innovative qualities of Mancini’s painting: a free and vibrant brushstroke, built up through short, luminous touches, capable of blurring the boundary between form and pictorial matter. The figure emerges from a barely suggested background, whilst the light focuses attention on the face and hands, conveying the subject’s psychological dimension through extraordinary expressive intensity. The reference to the world of Shakespeare was not a one-off in the artist’s oeuvre: some thirty years later, Mancini would return to the theme of Hamlet with a further sketch dedicated to the Danish prince. In this sense, *Ophelia (study)* from 1895 represents a particularly significant moment in his exploration of the human figure, suspended between reality, psychological introspection and symbolic suggestion. Housed in the Curtis Collection at Palazzo Barbaro, the work thus stands as an exceptional testament not only to Mancini’s creative maturity, but also to the role played by the Curtis family in supporting and promoting one of the most original figures in European painting between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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About the sale FROM THE CURTIS COLLECTIONS AT PALAZZO BARBARO: PAINTINGS, FURNITURE AND WORKS OF ART
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Auction time 09/29/2026 at 2:45 PM
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