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Lot Essay
Painted in 1884, Mercato turco is a unique example of Pasini's mature oeuvre. It is the ultimate tour de force of an artist at the peak of his artistic career, who, after many adventurous expeditions to the Orient and the Mediterranean, left Paris at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War and settled down in a secluded villa in Cavoretto, in the countryside surrounding Turin. Here, surrounded by a precious collection of contemporary art including paintings by Chassériau, Decamps, Signac, Klimt, and the Japanese Hokusai and Utamaro, Pasini developed his refined technical skills to a level of virtuosismo he had longed for since his Parisian years. In Cavoretto, the artist reflected upon his five trips to the East, rediscovering the wealth of drawings, bozzetti and notes that he had rapidly - yet compulsively - sketched during his expeditions through the desert.
The year 1884 was particularly successful for Pasini. Sending his paintings from his Piedmontese retreat, he participated in the prestigious Parisian Exposition Internationale de la rue de Sèze - which met with an enthusiastic response from the French critics, who deemed Pasini 'a new Canaletto' - and to the Italian Exhibition of Venice and Turin. At these international venues the artist was represented with his latest Orientalist and Venetian scenes. In fact, after his discovery of the la serenissima in 1876, Pasini successfully fused Venetian and Eastern iconographies - Venice's opulent decadence greatly influencing his late Orientalist corpus. Fired by the jewel-like chromatic feast of Venetian Byzantine domes and Baroque façades, Pasini developed an exuberant, almost manneristic palette, perfectly demonstrated in the present painting. The lime greens, intense oranges, and acid yellows of Mercato turco have an original, metallic vibration recalling Oriental silks, Turkish tiles, Persian striking miniatures and, above all, the neat transparency of Northern Italian light.
Whilst perfectly mastering these chromatic experiments, Pasini displays in the present oil an unrivalled control over the line - sharply defining his figures and capturing the details of their extraordinary expressions and gestures. Mercato turco thus combines Pasini's supreme command of drawing technique - learned whilst an apprentice etcher in the prestigious Parisian studio of Charles and Eugène Ciceri - with his vivid sense of rich pigments which Andrea Baboni calls 'una materia pittorica ricca e scintillante nell'ampia varietà del tocco - ora steso per morbidi impasti, ora scattante e plastico, grasso qua e là negli spessori di spatola, sontuoso di smalti nelle succose, libere e sciolte vibrazioni coloristiche...' (Exhibition catalogue, Alberto Pasini, da Parma a Costantinopoli via Parigi, Parma, 1996, p. 43). Pasini's versatile ductus finds in Mercato turco the most diverse technical expressions - from the smooth, thicker impasto, to the dryer, essential and elegant touches of spatula - resulting in a perfectly orchestrated feast of chromatic clashes and harmonies, chiaroscuri and contrasts, acid and earthy nuances, and Eastern and Western refinements.
The year 1884 was particularly successful for Pasini. Sending his paintings from his Piedmontese retreat, he participated in the prestigious Parisian Exposition Internationale de la rue de Sèze - which met with an enthusiastic response from the French critics, who deemed Pasini 'a new Canaletto' - and to the Italian Exhibition of Venice and Turin. At these international venues the artist was represented with his latest Orientalist and Venetian scenes. In fact, after his discovery of the la serenissima in 1876, Pasini successfully fused Venetian and Eastern iconographies - Venice's opulent decadence greatly influencing his late Orientalist corpus. Fired by the jewel-like chromatic feast of Venetian Byzantine domes and Baroque façades, Pasini developed an exuberant, almost manneristic palette, perfectly demonstrated in the present painting. The lime greens, intense oranges, and acid yellows of Mercato turco have an original, metallic vibration recalling Oriental silks, Turkish tiles, Persian striking miniatures and, above all, the neat transparency of Northern Italian light.
Whilst perfectly mastering these chromatic experiments, Pasini displays in the present oil an unrivalled control over the line - sharply defining his figures and capturing the details of their extraordinary expressions and gestures. Mercato turco thus combines Pasini's supreme command of drawing technique - learned whilst an apprentice etcher in the prestigious Parisian studio of Charles and Eugène Ciceri - with his vivid sense of rich pigments which Andrea Baboni calls 'una materia pittorica ricca e scintillante nell'ampia varietà del tocco - ora steso per morbidi impasti, ora scattante e plastico, grasso qua e là negli spessori di spatola, sontuoso di smalti nelle succose, libere e sciolte vibrazioni coloristiche...' (Exhibition catalogue, Alberto Pasini, da Parma a Costantinopoli via Parigi, Parma, 1996, p. 43). Pasini's versatile ductus finds in Mercato turco the most diverse technical expressions - from the smooth, thicker impasto, to the dryer, essential and elegant touches of spatula - resulting in a perfectly orchestrated feast of chromatic clashes and harmonies, chiaroscuri and contrasts, acid and earthy nuances, and Eastern and Western refinements.