Lot 17: Filippo Pistrucci (died c. 1857)

Filippo Pistrucci (died c. 1857)
Portraits of Maria Francesca, Dante Gabriel, William Michael and Christina Georgina Rossetti as children
one pencil and watercolour, three pencil and watercolour with gum arabic, on card, unframed
6 3/8 x 4 7/8 in. (16.2 x 12.4 cm.) (4)

William Michael Rossetti, 'The Portraits of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - I', Magazine of Art, 1889, pp. 22-3.
William E. Fredeman (ed.), The Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Cambridge, 2002- , vol. 1, p. 34, note 6.

Christina Rossetti by 1889. William Michael Rossetti and by descent in his family to the present owner.

These drawings are discussed in William Michael Rossetti's article on portraits of his brother, Dante Gabriel, published in the Magazine of Art in 1889. 'Designer, painter, writer and improvisatore', but making a day-to-day living by teaching Italian, Filippo Pistrucci was the brother of Benedetto Pistrucci (1784-1855), the eminent medallist and gem-engraver much employed by the Royal Mint. The brothers, who were Romans, were well known to Gabriele Rossetti, the children's father, all being members of the Italian expatriate community in London. William Michael paints an engaging portrait of Filippo, concluding: 'Had I to name the man of most natural kindliness of heart that I ever knew, I should probably say "Filippo Pistrucci".'

The drawings date from 1839-40, and those of the two boys were executed in Pistrucci's studio in Howland Street, Bloomsbury, adjacent to Charlotte Street, where the Rossetti family lived. Only the heads of Dante Gabriel and Maria, the elder of the two daughters, were considered successful likenesses.

Pistrucci drew two other early portraits of Dante Gabriel. One, the earliest likeness of all, dating from about 1834 when he was six, is illustrated in William Michael's article, p. 21. For the other, see Angela Thirlwell, William and Lucy: The Other Rossettis, Yale, 2003, p. 10, fig. 2.