18th century, circle of Pietro Antonio Rotari (Verona, September 30, 1707 – Saint Petersburg, August 31, 1762)
Girl with a basket of flowers
Oil on canvas, 52 x 70 cm
With frame, 62 x 80 cm
Pietro Antonio Rotari was an Italian painter born in Verona on September 30, 1707. Son of Sebastiano, physician and naturalist, he showed a strong inclination for painting from a young age. His artistic training began in Verona, where he was a pupil of Antonio Balestra until the age of 18. Between 1725 and 1727 he moved to Venice. Subsequently, between 1728 and 1732, he went to Rome, entering the studio of Francesco Trevisani. In Rome, in 1730, he also went to Grottaferrata to study the works of Domenichino, consolidating his markedly classicist orientation. From 1731 to 1734, he worked with Francesco Solimena in Naples. Returning to Verona, he opened his own studio: in this period, he mainly produced works of a sacred nature, such as San Francesco Borgia obtaining from Pope Paul III the confirmation of the exercises of s. Spirito for Bergamo in 1740, and L'elemosina di s. Ludovico da Tolosa for the Franciscans of the basilica of S. Antonio in 1741. The Jesuits were among his most assiduous admirers, and in 1743 he sent the S. Giorgio tempted to sacrifice to the idols for the homonymous church in Reggio Emilia. In 1749 he was appointed count. In 1750 he moved to Vienna, and in 1756 he was invited to Russia by the court of Tsarina Elizabeth I. In St. Petersburg, he became a court painter and also dedicated himself to portraying Russian villages and peasants. He was very popular as a portrait painter, painting the royal families in Dresden and St. Petersburg. Many of his works were initially kept at the Russian Academy of Arts and the Peterhof Palace of Catherine II. Rotari is particularly known for his character heads and for his wonderful female portraits, called "passions", with marked and languid expressiveness, painted in oil and pastel, which significantly contributed to his fame. As evidence of Rotari's immense success in Russia, it is necessary to remember how Catherine II purchased 340 of his paintings to exhibit them in the so-called "cabinet of fashions and graces" of the luxurious Peterhof Palace, designed in part by Bartolomeo Rastrelli near St. Petersburg. Rotari died suddenly in St. Petersburg on August 31, 1762, and received solemn obsequies.
The painting in question is linked to the production of female portraits by Rotari from Verona. A richly and lavishly dressed lady boldly turns her gaze to the viewer, holding in her hands a basket of multicolored wildflowers: the work is close to Rotari's passions, particularly appreciated by Tsarina Catherine of Russia, both in terms of the iconographic scope and with regard to the technical-executive details: the painting is a precious testimony of the great visual fortune of Rotari's production in Italy and in Europe as early as the mid-eighteenth century.
