Giosuè Meli, Cardinal in Mozzetta & Mantelletta, Rome – c.1840 watercolour
Giosuè Meli, Cardinal in Mozzetta & Mantelletta, Rome – c.1840 watercolour
Giosuè Meli, Cardinal in Mozzetta & Mantelletta, Rome – c.1840 watercolour
Giosuè Meli, Cardinal in Mozzetta & Mantelletta, Rome – c.1840 watercolour

Giosuè Bernardino Meli Cardinal in Mozzetta & Mantelletta, Rome

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View the full Collection: Meli, Giosuè Bernardino (1816–1893)

An original c.1840 watercolour painting, Giosuè Meli, Cardinal in Mozzetta & Mantelletta, Rome.

This beautiful drawing in watercolour with graphite is a rare work by the 19th-century Italian sculptor Giosuè Bernardino Meli (1816–1893). Meli usually worked in three dimensions, carving exquisite figures in Carrara marble. This drawing showcases the artist's virtuoso flair for figure modelling, as well as his delicacy of drawn line and precision colouring.

After a long period of underappreciation, there has been renewed interest in Meli after a recent biography by Carlo Pinessi of the Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Luzzana.

Giosuè Meli moved from his native Luzzano in northern Italy to Rome in 1840, thanks to the patronage of some prominent figures of Bergamo society, such as the noblewoman Lucia Prezzati, the count Leonino Secco Suardo and the cardinal Angelo Maj. In Rome he perfected his sculpture studies in the studio of Giovanni Maria Benzoni (1809–1873), an established sculptor of Bergamo origin. Meli was influenced by the Neoclassical style of Benzoni and other contemporary sculptors working in Rome, such as Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844) and Pietro Tenerani (1789–1869), but he also sought an expressive language between Neoclassicism and Romanticism.

This drawing is believed to date from around the time Meli relocated to Rome. Inscribed 'Cardinale in mozzetta e mantelletta' (Cardinal in cape and vestment), it shows a group of Catholic clergymen centred around a cardinal, vividly picked out in red. The presence of the 'mantelletta' indicates that these clergymen are in Rome, where a cardinal is required to wear the mantelletta under the mozzetta as a sign of deference to the Pope.

This drawing is one of a pair by Meli that we have for sale, the other of which is a view in St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.

The drawing is signed 'Meli fecit'. In watercolour with graphite on cream wove paper.

There is an unidentified blindstamp, FM in a circle, not in Lugt but presumably a collector's stamp. A group of drawings by Meli sold at Christie's in 1995 bearing the same stamp and dated 1839.

Provenance: the present drawing derives from a mixed Victorian album of exceptional quality, previously uncatalogued.

+ Read the Artist Research

Giosuè Bernardino Meli (1816–1893)

Giosuè Bernardino Meli (1816–1893) was born in Luzzana, a small hilltop village in Bergamo, the son of a landed peasant. His talent for sculpture emerged very early: aged just sixteen he sculpted a dead Christ in wood, now preserved in the parish of Luzzana. Meli attended the Carrara Academy in Bergamo from 1836 to 1840. In 1838, on the death of his father, he sculpted a Carrara marble tombstone depicting a grieving female figure in the Canova style. Also around this time he produced a monumental visionary work titled 'Giant', a large bas-relief sculpted into the living rock of the Cavallina Valley in Luzzana, inspired by Michelangelo’s gigantism and Giambologna’s Mannerism.

In 1840 Giosuè Meli moved from his native Luzzano to Rome, thanks to the patronage of some prominent figures of Bergamo society, such as the noblewoman Lucia Prezzati, the count Leonino Secco Suardo and the cardinal Angelo Maj. In Rome he perfected his sculpture studies in the studio of Giovanni Maria Benzoni (1809–1873), an established sculptor of Bergamo origin. He went on to set up his own studio and home in Piazza Lancellotti. Meli was influenced by the Neoclassical style of Benzoni and other contemporary sculptors working in Rome, such as Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844) and Pietro Tenerani (1789–1869), but he also sought an expressive language between Neoclassicism and Romanticism.

In 1861 Meli's work achieved wider recognition when his sculpture titled Pompeian Mother was purchased by Lord Mitchell Henry, a wealthy financier and member of the British Parliament. Henry transformed his home Stratheden House, in Kensington, London, into an Italianate-style villa, and Meli's semi-colossal statue in Carrara marble formed the centrepiece in its own Pompeian-style temple within the house. Tsarina Alexandra, wife of Tsar Nicholas I, also purchased a marble work by Meli, Innocence and Fidelity (1854), on a trip to Europe, now exhibited at the State Russian Museum in the Stroganov Palace in St Petersburg. Other works by Meli include Bound Christ (1874) at the Scala Santa in Rome and the monument of Santa Francesca Romana (1869) in the church of Santa Maria al Foro. Today a number of his works are also kept at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Luzzana in Bergamo.

Giosuè Meli died in Rome in 1893 and was buried in the cemetery of Verano.

COA
+ Artwork Details

Dimensions: Height: 17.2cm (6.77") Width: 23.7cm (9.33")

Presented: Unframed.

Medium: Watercolour

Age: Early 19th-century

Signed: Signed lower right.

Inscribed: Inscribed lower centre.

Dated: --

Condition: The overall impression is good, with crisp, clean colouration. There is crease line in the paper running obliquely across the lower right, and further light vertical creasing to the left of the image. Slight wrinkling to the paper at the right edge of the sheet. These issues could be substantailly mounted out. Please see photos for detail.

Stock number: KB-746