Gioacchino PAGLIEI Musician on her balcony

Oil on canvas signed lower right
62 cm x 38 cm

Gioacchino PAGLIEI is one of the finest exponents of Italian academic art. The output of this artist, who died at the age of 44, is rare. Qualified to as "pompier art" in the 19th and early 20th centuries, this type of painting represents the final stage of Western pictorial classicism, which began with the Italian Renaissance in the 15th century. The aim is always to achieve a resemblance with reality as perceived by the human eye, while associating it with an ideal of beauty.

In Italy, PAGLIEI was one of the few academic painters to follow the Neo-Pompian path of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, which appeared in England as early as 1848. Among the Pre-Raphaelites, Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) visited Pompeii in 1863, at a time of renewed interest in Italy's ancient history, with excavations just taking off. Fascinated by Pompeii, Alma-Tadema produced a work of exceptional technical achievement, in which "the exquisite beauty of the subjects is deliciously erotic".

Following Alma Tadéma's example, Pagliéi imbued her technique with the Pre-Raphaelites, but introduced more movement and gentleness into her figures.

Our painting is a rare, typically Pompeian subject, featuring a toga-wearing lyre player in an antique setting. Indeed, most of this great artist's works are scenes of Roman life, with a profusion of characters dressed in 18th-century or early 19th-century costumes. Here, Pagliei shows his incredible skill in reproducing the fabrics, the young girl's complexion, the marbled, sunken decor, the lyre and the flowers thrown in, but also the luxuriant nature. The window overlooks idealized vegetation, giving this composition a surprising openness that is rare for a purely academic painting.

The work, on its original canvas, is in excellent condition. It is presented in a fine antique frame in wood and gilded stucco.