Rodolfo Morgari (Torino 1827-1909)

Rodolfo Morgari (Turin 1827-1909) Music Lesson Second half of the 19th century Oil on canvas, 100 x 63 cm Publications: unpublished Characteristics: signed lower right Rodolfo Morgari, son of Giuseppe and younger brother of Paolo Emilio, both painters, belongs to a dynasty of artists that spans from the late eighteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century. He studied at the Accademia Albertina and was a painter of historical paintings and a decorator. He is responsible for the decorations of some important buildings in Turin and Piedmont (Palazzo della Provincia, formerly of the Dukes of Aosta; Palazzo Reale, Palazzo Corbetta Bellini di Lessolo, Royal Castle of Racconigi) and of a large number of churches in Piedmont. An appreciated artist, he also carried out an important restoration activity and in 1858 he was appointed by King Vittorio Emanuele II as restorer of the Royal Palaces. At the National Exhibition of 1884 he was awarded a gold medal for the imitation of antique tapestries executed with particular skill. He taught for many years at the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti. To the general public he is known above all as the author of vast frescoes of sacred subjects for numerous Piedmontese churches; in reality Morgari was also an excellent portraitist, author of genre and historical scenes and a refined painter of eclectic taste, with a marked inclination for a neo-eighteenth-century style of French taste, as demonstrated by the frescoes and decorations executed in 1888 for the vault of the Sala delle Fabbriche by Paolo V Borghese in the Palazzo del Quirinale. 
Measures H x L x P 100cm x 63cm x 3cm