FILIPPO PALIZZI | PORTRAIT OF STANISLAO LISTA

Private collection, Florence.

"Palizzi’s portrait study of the sculptor Stanislao Lista captures so well the fraternal relationship between these two artists, who worked alongside each other in Naples in the middle years of the 19th century. You somehow feel that Palizzi is gently poking fun at his friend’s confident insouciance, which makes this accomplished oil study all the more appealing."

Greg Rubinstein

The present work is a preparatory sketch for Palizzi's important painting Gita a Cava,¹ of 1882, which is today in a private Italian collection. Filippo Palizzi was born in Vasto (Chieti). He moved to Naples in 1837 and enrolled at the Royal Institute of Fine Arts. Contact with his brother Giuseppe, who moved to France in 1844, introduced him to the painting of the Barbizon School. He visited Paris on the occasion of the Universal Exhibition in 1855 and then went on to the Netherlands. Having returned to Paris in 1863, he concentrated on nature studies from life and took part in the Universal Exhibition of 1867, winning a gold medal. The following decade saw further work on the handling of light both in landscapes painted outdoors and in paintings of interiors.

An advocate of the need to bring academic teaching up to date, he founded the Naples Società Promotrice di Belle Arti in 1861 together with Domenico Morelli and the Museo Artistico Industriale in 1878, being appointed director two years later. He died in Naples in 1899.

¹ See Civiltà dell'Ottocento. Le Arti a Napoli dai Borbone ai Savoia, Naples 1998, pp. 522-525.