01 work, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, Adriano Cecchi's A North African Woman, with Footnotes #190

Adriano Cecchi, Italian, 1850 - 1936

A North African Woman

Oil on canvas

73.7 by 59.6cm., 29 by 23½in.

Private collection

Sold for 6,930 GBP in March 2022

Adriano Cecchi was an Italian artist with an affinity for coquettish, rococo portraits and historical scenes of the 18th-century. He also produced an array of paintings depicting figures in the traditional folk dress of Italy. Both styles of painting were popular in the 19th-century and Cecchi was able to execute a huge array during his career.

Here he depicts a woman from North Africa in a more sombre, powerful stance in one portrait. Italy was, during the 19th-century, expanding its African empire. It is, therefore, a much more modern subject for Cecchi and suggests a prominent contemporary interest in these Italian campaigns, so much so it captured the interest of a man devoted to capturing the past. More on A North African Woman

Adriano Cecchi ( December 21, 1850 in Prato – 1936 in Florence ) was an Italian genre painter and printmaker.

He was the son of the wood sculptor Giuseppe Cecchi and Rosa Barbani. Adriano Cecchi studied painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti (Florence) .

Between 1870 and 1880 he was influenced by the Macchiaioli group of artists and by Telemaco Signorini , with whom he shared the studio in via della Robbia from 1875 to 1880.

From 1880 to 1911 Cecchi visited London several times , also accompanied by Signorini. There he painted portraits and genre paintings in the style of Thomas Gainsborough .

In the last decade of the 19th century, Cecchi took an active part in the cultural life of Florence, involved in various initiatives, including being active in the Florence Society of Fine Arts. He designed the facade of the Florentine Basilica of San Lorenzo , but the project was not carried out.

In the last years of his life, Cecchi withdrew to his studio in via delle Pergola, where he occupied himself with the renovation of old paintings. More on Adriano Cecchi

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