Antonio Mancini

Mancini, Antonio

(b Albano Laziale, 14 Nov 1852; d Rome, 28 Dec 1930).

Italian painter. He entered the Istituto di Belle Arti, Naples, at the age of 12; while still an adolescent he produced accomplished works such as Head of a Young Girl (1867; Naples, Capodimonte). On his graduation in 1873, Mancini, together with Francesco Paolo Michetti and Vincenzo Gemito, was at the forefront of VERISMO in Neapolitan art. Sharing a studio with Gemito, he painted the street boys, musicians and dancers of Naples, creating an anti-academic, popular art. His patron, Albert, Count Cahen of Antwerp (1846–1903), encouraged him to visit Paris in 1875, where he met Manet and Degas. After a second visit in 1877, he lightened his previously sombre palette and his style moved away from sensual modelling to become more decorative.

Through the 1880s and 1890s Mancini’s work became increasingly flamboyant in the use of both colour and impasto. His output was dominated by society portraits, although he often returned to the genre subjects of his youth and also painted many self-portraits. The grandiose Marchese Capranica del Grillo (1889; London, N.G.) is a striking example of his mature work. In his late paintings Mancini was preoccupied with surface texture, using thick impasto and adding materials such as coloured glass and foil to enhance the luminous colours of his canvases. Though considered by John Singer Sargent to be the best contemporary Italian painter, Mancini only became a member of the Accademia Nazionale di S Luca in 1929.

Bibliography

Bolaffi; Comanducci

C. Maltese: Realismo e verismo nella pittura italiana dell’ottocento (Milan, 1967)

F. Bellanzi: Antonio Mancini (Milan, 1978)