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Lot Essay
Vincenzo Irolli is amongst the most original protagonists of the Ottocento napoletano. A brilliant pupil of the Neapolitan painters Toma and Maldarelli, he completed his artistic training at the Istituto di Belle Arti in Naples and made his successful debut at the Promotrice Napoletana - Naples' prestigious Società di Belle Arti - in 1879, with Felice Rimembranza. From his first appearance until the end of the century, Irolli exhibited at the Promotrice with enthusiastic responses from the local public, as M. Agnellini points out: 'Nel corso della lunga carriera espone con grande successo di pubblico nelle maggiori mostre italiane e straniere' (Ottocento Italiano, Milano, 1996, p. 154). Encouraged by his successes in patria, the Italian artist participated in the most celebrated international events, including the fairs of both Munich (1890) and Berlin (1893), and, of course, the Parisian Salon (1907) and the Salon d'Automne (1909), where his painting Spannocchiatrici was acquired by the Municipalité de la Ville de Paris. Following the French exploit, echoes of his talent resounded in the Parisian press: the reviews of the 1909 Salon d'Automne in Figaro called the artist 'extrèmement habile' and 'séduisant'.
Irolli's stylistic and iconographic interests changed dramatically towards the end of the third decade of the century. He began to focus on religious themes, inaugurating a new pictorial season which was to culminate in the ten paintings celebrating the life of Christ, presented in 1936 at the Mostra d'arte sacra in the Sala Minerva in Rome.
The young Musicians is one of the best examples of Irolli's oeuvre. As in his striking Fanciulla and Letto di fiori (both in private collections), in the present painting the artist displays, with exceptional bravura, his 'pennellata, intrisa di colore e luce, [dal] vago sapore 'michettiano' nel 'ductus' a piccoli, leggerissimi tocchi' (C. P. Olivares, La Pittura Napoletana dell'Ottocento, Napoli, 1993, p. 133). Indeed, Irolli's brilliant scugnizzi have the vibrant intensity of Michetti's and Mancini's most colourful figures. Stylistically, also, the Neapolitan painter is looking at his most prominent concittadini. Irolli's reference to Mancini's painting methods is particularly evident in the treatment of the white wall, against which the children are powerfully cast: the bright surface of the wall is rendered through the juxtaposition of irregular squares of colour, an optical device which became Mancini's stylistical cipher, giving rise to extraordinary effects of light.
Irolli's stylistic and iconographic interests changed dramatically towards the end of the third decade of the century. He began to focus on religious themes, inaugurating a new pictorial season which was to culminate in the ten paintings celebrating the life of Christ, presented in 1936 at the Mostra d'arte sacra in the Sala Minerva in Rome.
The young Musicians is one of the best examples of Irolli's oeuvre. As in his striking Fanciulla and Letto di fiori (both in private collections), in the present painting the artist displays, with exceptional bravura, his 'pennellata, intrisa di colore e luce, [dal] vago sapore 'michettiano' nel 'ductus' a piccoli, leggerissimi tocchi' (C. P. Olivares, La Pittura Napoletana dell'Ottocento, Napoli, 1993, p. 133). Indeed, Irolli's brilliant scugnizzi have the vibrant intensity of Michetti's and Mancini's most colourful figures. Stylistically, also, the Neapolitan painter is looking at his most prominent concittadini. Irolli's reference to Mancini's painting methods is particularly evident in the treatment of the white wall, against which the children are powerfully cast: the bright surface of the wall is rendered through the juxtaposition of irregular squares of colour, an optical device which became Mancini's stylistical cipher, giving rise to extraordinary effects of light.