Lot 66: Attilio Simonetti (Italian, 1843-1925) Odalisque

Attilio Simonetti (Italian, 1843-1925)
Odalisque oil on board56 x 79cm (22 1/16 x 31 1/8in).

Provenance: The artist.Thence by direct descent.Attilio Simonetti was a pupil and close friend of Mariano Fortuny y Marsal, one of the greatest Spanish Orientalist artists. Fortuny had come to Rome in 1858 where he met Simonetti and the two artists became friends and shared an atelier.In 1861 Fortuny painted Odalisque (now in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona) a painting considered to be a seminal work by the artist. The present lot is a copy of the original and is mentioned in the catalogue of the recent Fortuny exhibition held at Museo Nazionale del Prado, Madrid, from 21 November 2017 to 18 March 2018 (p. 110). It is also painted on artist's board and of the same dimensions as the original.Simonetti was the son of Francesco Simonetti, a silversmith who had a workshop in the Via del Corso, and his wife Carolina Raffaelli a member of a well-known family of mosaicists. Apart from a successful career as an artist (he sold many of his works through The Goupil Gallery) Simonetti was an avid collector of antiques. He conducted a sale of his collection in 1883, and after the success of this he decided to open an antiques gallery in Palazzo Odescalchi. He developed an important international clientele including the Rothschilds, John Taylor Johnston (founder of the Metropolitan Museum of New York), Prince Umberto I (later King of Italy) and collectors such as William Hood Stewart and James H. Stebbins.