Lot 142: Angelo Morbelli , Italian 1853 - 1919 Casa alla Colma (House on a Hill) oil on canvas

signed Morbelli lower left oil on canvas

45 by 55cm., 17 7/8 by 21 1/2 in.

Turin, Fondazione Guido e Ettore De Fornaris, Angelo Morbelli. Tra realismo e divisionismo, 2001, no. 96, illustrated in the catalogue

Purchased by the present owner circa 1980

Painted between 1900 and 1910.

One of the leading Italian Divisionists, Morbelli's focus on the spatial aspect of composition was influenced by photography, and tempered by his personal vision of the world and modernity. While expressing social realism using a very calculated painterly technique, Morbelli also imbued his compositions with a lyrical poeticism. While not as high-divisionist as some of his earlier work, the present work exhibits the same sensitivity towards light and shade, and the subtle tones and nuances visible in the colours of nature.

Vittore Grubicy, Morbelli's fellow Divisionist, noted that the artist had already by 1888 '... obtained the desired optical fusion of coloured lights without darkening them by mixing them on the palette or having recourse to the disagreeable and gaudy dabs of the pseudo-impressionists' (quoted in Sandra Berresford, Post-Impressionism, exh. cat., Royal Academy, London, 1979-80, p. 241).
PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN