Michelangelo Gualandi
(Bologna 1793 – Bologna 1887)
Life portrait of a member of the Riali family
Etching
Dimensions: mm 211 x 170; sheet 292 x 213
Collector, historian, and scholar, born into a family belonging to the small merchant class, Michelangelo is destined for commerce. His studies are therefore oriented towards languages and accounting, a training that will lead him to travel, create profitable international contacts, and give him the opportunity to frequent archives and libraries fundamental for his studies and publications. After leaving the commercial activity to his brother, he dedicates himself to the study of history and fine arts. A collector of antiquities and painting, mediator for foreign collectors in Italy, he is credited with having brought the collection of the artist Pelagio Pelagi to the City of Bologna. Starting in 1840, he published the original Italian Memoirs regarding the fine arts; another interesting publication of his is the New Collection of Letters on Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture.
The sheet reproduces a drawing considered to be an autograph by Elisabetta Sirani (Bologna 1638 - Bologna 1665), at the time kept at the Cav. Carlo Ernesto Liverati, a Bolognese history painter but residing in Florence, as inscribed in the upper part of the plate. In the composition, we see an elderly woman walking from right to left; eyes wide open, aquiline nose, and face furrowed with wrinkles, she is wrapped in a dress too large for her build. A wide-brimmed hat rests on long and disheveled hair. Engraved on the plate is the inscription found on the back of the drawing: "Life portrait of a member of the Riali family, original by the famous Elisabetta Sirani, for whom she was poisoned by the same Reali, and such a celebrated painter died in the prime of her life." Elisabetta Sirani was indeed poisoned by a house servant. On the sheet, in the lower white margin, handwritten dedication in pen by the author: To my friend Luciano, the first sample of an engraving that will be part of the Memoirs, which his Michelangelo will publish about the life of Elisabetta Sirani. 1841. Bologna 15. The reference of the dedication is to the volume actually published by Michelangelo.
A reproduction of the engraving was published in Emporio Artistico - Letterario ossia Raccolte di Amene letture di educazione e famiglia, volume V, Venice 1853.
