A Man Seated and Asleep

The Artist: Giuseppe Abbati was born in Naples on January 13, 1836. His parents were Francesca De Romano (b. 1807) and Vincenzo Abbati (1803/7–1874), a painter of interior views in the vein of François-Marius Granet (1775–1849) and Louis-Nicolas Lemasle (1788–1876), French artists active in Italy in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. In 1842, the Abbati family moved to Florence, where Vincenzo was patronized by Marie-Caroline de Bourbon-Sicile, duchesse de Berry (1798–1870), whom the family followed to Venice in 1846. Giuseppe first learned to paint from his father, and in 1851 he entered the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, where he studied under Girolamo Michelangelo Grigoletti (1801–1870).

In 1856, in Venice, Abbati met the visiting painters Vito D’Ancona (1825–1884) and Telemaco Signorini (1835–1901). Soon afterward he would become closer to them as one of the Macchiaioli, vanguard painters active in Tuscany in the 1850s and 60s. The Macchiaioli translated currents in French realism into an Italian idiom. They are associated with a key moment in Italian history, the Risorgimento, which culminated in the 1860s with the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, and with Florence replacing Turin as the nation's capital from 1865 until 1871, the year following Italian unification, when the capital finally moved to Rome. Abbati fought alongside Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–1882), losing his right eye in battle early in the siege of Capua, Sicily, on October 1, 1860. He then moved to Florence, where he encountered Serafino De Tivoli (1826–1892), Odoardo Borrani (1834–1905), and Vincenzo Cabianca (1827–1902), who frequented the Caffè Michelangiolo. Cristiano Banti (1824–1904), Giovanni Fattori (1825–1908), Silvestro Lega (1826–1895), and Raffaello Sernesi (1838–1866) were also core painters of the Macchiaioli.

Equally as important to the group as these artists was the writer Diego Martelli (1839–1896), who is perhaps best known today for the portrait of him that Edgar Degas painted in 1879, now in the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh.[1] Martelli had a country estate at the seaside Tuscan village of Castiglioncello, where, from 1861 onward, the Macchaioli, perhaps Abbati above all, produced “paintings so closely linked to their environment that their work assumed unintentionally the characteristics of a school of painting.”[2]

In 1861, in Florence, Abbati exhibited two interior views at the I Espozione Italiana, the first exhibition of Italian art organized after unification. Reacting against accolades from conservative quarters, he abandoned this traditional subject. He turned to motifs painted out of doors instead. He produced compositions striking for their simplicity, strong play of light and shadow, and audacious cropping of form. They are often painted on supports of uncommon proportions. Abbati died in Florence on February 21, 1868, from a rabies infection. He was thirty-two.[3]

The Painting: In style, subject, medium, dimensions, and date, Man Seated and Asleep is a characteristic work of Abbati’s maturity and representative of the Macchiaioli. Macchia is an Italian word that means "spot" or "stain," and this painting features the adjacent macchie, or alternating sun-struck passages and deep shadows, as well as the geometric forms in the wall, favored by Abbati and his colleagues as ways to bring unpretentious vibrancy to pictures otherwise marked by stillness. In Tuscan vernacular the term aiolo is typically a suffix denoting workmanlike labor. The paintings of the Macchiaioli, especially those painted from life on wood panels whose grain contributes to their appearance—so much in evidence in this work—are notable for the way their aesthetic impact is enhanced by the natural qualities of the support. Abbati deliberately left the painting in a state that calls attention to the process that brought it into being rather than hide its painterliness beneath a smooth finish. This picture exemplifies the quotidian themes preferred by the Macchiaioli. On one level it depicts a man napping in the sun, and, in that sense, it may be considered a “found” subject, executed in improvised circumstances. However, on the basis of a comparable portrait by Eugenio Cecconi (1842–1903), the model has been identified convincingly as poet Renato Fucini (1843–1921).[4] In this way, the picture is also an unusual mode of portraiture. Did Abbati intend this painting to be recognized as a portrait, perhaps within a close circle of compatriots? The present title, which dates to the painting’s first known publication in 1928, leaves the question open but affords an avenue of further inquiry. Scholars agree that Man Seated and Asleep was painted about 1865. It was probably painted in Florence, apparently at the same time as Cecconi’s painting (see Dini 1987).

History: The early history of Man Seated and Asleep is untraced. Abbati signed it with his monogram, so he undoubtedly considered it finished. The painting is thought to have been executed no more than about three years before the artist’s untimely death, but whether or not he parted with it during his lifetime is undetermined. The panel passed through several distinguished Italian collections of modern painting. Its first known owner was the Florentine agricultural entrepreneur conte Ferdinando De Nobili (1821–1885); it may have been his heirs’ collection, including this work, that was sold anonymously at auction in Florence, in 1926. Its next known owners were both Florentines, including sculptor Mario Galli (1877–1946), whose collection label is affixed to the back of the panel, and merchant Enrico Checcucci (1865–1933); it passed through the latter’s collection sale in 1928. It was purchased at that auction by the northern Italian collector Camillo Giussani (1879–1960), who acquired other pictures at the sale; it is said that he was accompanied by the great Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini (1867–1957). Man Seated and Asleep remained in the Giussani family until 2002.[5]

Asher Miller 2023

[1] Degas first encountered the Macchiaioli on early trips to Italy, where he visited his mother’s relatives. See Norma Broude, “An Early Friend of Degas in Florence: A Newly-Identified Portrait Drawing of Degas by Giovanni Fattori,” Burlington Magazine 115 (November 1973), pp. 726–35.
[2] Lela Titonel in The Macchiaioli: Masters of Realism in Tuscany, exh. cat., Manchester City Art Gallery, 1982, p. 55.
[3] See Dini 1987 and Norma Broude, The Macchiaioli: Italian Painters of the Nineteenth Century, New Haven, 1987.
[4] Whereabouts unknown; see Dario Durbe and Giampaolo Daddi, Mostra Retrospettiva di Eugenio Cecconi, exh. cat., Museo Civico di Livorno, 1974, no. 32, ill., lent by private collection.
[5] On De Nobili, see https://www.museogalileo.it/images/biblioteca_digitale/collezioni_tematiche/Guida_mostra_Volti_scienza.pdf (online resource consulted October 16, 2022). On the other collectors, see Francesca Dini, ed., I Macchiaioli: Le Collezioni Svelate, exh. cat., Chiostro del Bramante, Rome, 2016.

Inscription: Signed (lower left): G. A.

conte Ferdinando De Nobili, Florence; private collection (De Nobili?), Florence (until 1926; collection sale, "Collezione di quadri moderni: Catalogo della vendita all'asta di una delle più belle e note collezioni fiorentine di quadri moderni," Galleria Merlini e Gazzini, Florence, May 6–7, 1926, no. 40, as "Uomo seduto che dorme"); Mario Galli, Florence; Enrico Checcucci, Florence (until 1928; his sale, "Catalogo della vendita all'asta della raccolta Enrico Checcucci di Firenze," Galleria Pesaro, Milan, May 21–24, 1928, no. 35, as "Uomo seduto che dorme," to Giussani); Camillo Giussani (d. 1960), Milan and Erba (by 1956); by descent to his heirs (until 2002; sold to Matteucci); [Giuliano Matteucci, Milan, 2002; sold to Giuffrida di Novara]; Franco Giuffrida di Novara (2002–his d.); his son (sold to Ponti); [Galleria d'Arte Ponti (Alessio Ponti), Rome, until 2022]

Rome. Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna. "I Macchiaioli," May–July 1956, no. 273 (as "Uomo seduto che dorme," lent by the Giussani collection, Erba).

Munich. Haus der Kunst. "Toskanische Impressionen: Der Beitrag der Macchiaioli zum europäischen Realismus," October 18, 1975–January 4, 1976, no. 87 (as "Uomo seduto che dorme [Im Sitzen eingeschlafener Mann]," lent by a private collection).

Lugano. Museo civico di belle arti. "I Macchiaioli: Pittori toscani del secondo Ottocento," March 17–June 17, 1979, no. 63 (as "Uomo seduto che dorme," lent by a private collection, Zürich).

Catalogo della vendita all'asta della raccolta Enrico Checcucci di Firenze. Galleria Pesaro. 1928, p. 7, no. 35, provides early provenance information for the painting.

Ugo Ojetti. I Macchiaioli toscani nella raccolta di Enrico Checcucci. Milan, 1928, unpaginated, no. 35, pl. 4, as "Uomo seduto che dorme".

Emilio Cecchi. "Ottocento pittorico: Sernesi, Abbati, D'Ancona." Frontespizio 18 (April 1940), ill. p. 230, as "Uomo che dorme".

Barna Occhini. L'Arte classica e l'arte italiana. Turin, 1945, vol. 3, p. 248, fig. 392.

Renzo Baldaccini. Giuseppe Abbati: Contributi alla pittura italiana dell'Ottocento. Florence, 1947, pp. 41, 76, dates it 1863.

Giovanni Carandente. I Macchiaioli. Exh. cat., Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna. Rome, 1956, p. 114, no. 273, dates it 1863, which he describes as a period in which the artist turned toward an intense and "costruttivo" (constructive or technical) chiaroscuro.

Dario Durbé and Giuliano Matteucci in Toskanische Impressionen: Der Beitrag der Macchiaioli zum europäischen Realismus. Exh. cat., Haus der Kunst. Munich, 1975, p. 123, no. 87, ill., date it 1865–66; provide provenance information for the painting; identify the sitter as the writer Renato Fucini, a close friend of Giovanni Fattori, Diego Martelli, and other members of the Macchiaioli; note the similarity between the sitter and a portrait by Eugenio Cecconi of Fucini wearing the same hat, adding that they were probably made at the same time.

Anna Gramiccia in I Macchiaioli: Pittori toscani del secondo Ottocento. Exh. cat., Museo civico di belle arti, Lugano. Rome, 1979, p. 53, no. 63, ill., mentions the similarity of a drawing by Cecconi of Fucini in the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi in Florence.

Dario Durbé. Fattori e la scuola di Castiglioncello. Vol. 2, Florence, 1983, pp. 146, 232, no. 87, ill. p. 148, calls it "Uomo seduto che dorme (ritratto di Renato Fucini)" and locates it in a list of paintings as in a private collection in Erba, but as in a Swiss collection in the text; dates it as "almost definitely from" 1865; notes that Cecconi made a drawing of a man in the same pose and reproduces the drawing as "Renato Fucini che dorme" (no. 90, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence) as well as his painting of the same figure awake as "L'uomo col cappello" called "'L'uccellatore' (portrait of Renato Fucini)" (private collection, Florence).

Piero Dini. Giuseppe Abbati: L'Opera completa. San Miniato, 1987, pp. 115–16, 301, no. 141, ill., as "Uomo seduto che dorme (Ritratto di Renato Fucini)" in the Giussani collection, Erba; accepts the identification of the sitter and date made in Durbé 1983, calling both its style and signature characteristic of Abbati's work in that year; asserts the likelihood that it was painted in Florence, not Castiglioncello, on the bases of the winter clothes the sitter wears and comparison with Cecconi's related painting, presumably from the same sitting, which is known to have been produced in Florence.

Francesca Dini in I Macchiaioli: Le Collezioni svelate. Ed. Francesca Dini. Exh. cat., Chiostro del Bramante, Rome. Milan, 2016, pp. 45–46, fig. 47, dates it about 1865; states that it is more muted but no less significant than paintings by Raffaello Sernesi and Telemaco Signorini that Camillo Giussani also bought at the 1928 Checcucci sale, where he may have been accompanied by Arturo Toscanini.

Julie Demarle. "Une première œuvre de Giuseppe Abbati pour le Metropolitan." Tribune de l'art (May 26, 2023), ill. (color) [https://www.latribunedelart.com/une-premiere-oeuvre-de-giuseppe-abbati-pour-le-metropolitan].