299
Prospero Mallerini (1761 - 1838)
EXCEPTIONAL TROMPE-L’ŒIL DEPICTING MICHELANGELO’S PIETÀ
Oil on Canvas
h cm 103 x l cm 74
Trompe-l’œil painting depicting a bronze reproduction of Michelangelo’s youthful Pietà, set on a base inscribed MATER DOLOROSA. At lower right, a skull; at lower left, two books, one partially open. Behind, a wooden cross draped with a white cloth serving as a backdrop; to the left of the cross, a glass holy water stoup and a rosary with a female profile. In the background, a wooden wall. Signed and dated 1820 at lower right.
The painting was commissioned by Count Giacomo Mellerio for his villa in Brianza, Il Gernetto, from the painter Prospero Mallerini, through the Marquis Filippo Patrizi Naro Montoro, the Count’s Roman nephew (as evidenced in the typescript “Epistolario alfabetico” (1800–1847), sheet 59 under the letter “M”, MALLERINI PROSPERO 28: Letter from Casa, 18 April 1832, n.p., addressed to Marquis Patrizi Filippo for the delivery of a painting. Archive of the Mellerio family, held at the Biblioteca civica Angelo Mai, Bergamo).
Bibliography: “Il trompe-l’œil con la Pietà giovanile di Michelangelo dipinto da Prospero Mallerini” by Sebastiano Giordano, in Studi di Storia dell’Arte, Vol. 35, 2024, pp. 231–242.
€ 28.000,00 / 40.000,00
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