Vincenzo Irolli

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 16 June 1995, lot 256.

Among Naples' most successful Ottocento painters, Irolli studied at the city's Institute of Fine Arts. Seeing the works of Francesco Michetti and the young Antonio Mancini at the Esposizione Nazionale held in Naples in 1877 left a lasting impression on the young Irolli, and the influence of Mancini in particular is evident in his painterly approach throughout his oeuvre, both stylistically and in terms of subject. Like the Roman Mancini, Irolli was first and foremost a figure painter, focusing on children, individually or in groups, using local Neapolitan models and settings, painted with luminous impressionistic brushstrokes. Irolli exhibited widely throughout Italy but also internationally in France and England. As one reviewer of the 1920 Venice Biennale wrote, 'we notice also with great pleasure the interiors and figure studies of Vincenzo Irolli, warm in colour and full of light.'