Oil painting, 'Charity: Interior with Figures', Luigi Zuccoli, mid 19th century

Humble domestic interior with three female figures, one woman dressed in grey and black dressed sits on a chair with a craddle at her side; an elegant older woman followed by a young girl is giving her charity.

Bequeathed by Joshua Dixon

Bequeathed by Joshua Dixon, 1886

Historical significance: This painting is a fine example of Luigi Zuccoli's work, which was primarily influenced by the leading exponent of Romanticism at the time, Francesco Hayez (1791-1882). However after 1867, he focused almost exclusively on genre scenes, sometimes enclosing social contents.
1057-1886 shows indeed a humble domestic interior with naked walls, a single bed and a crucifix in the background. In the foreground a young woman sitting on a chair with a cradle by her side, is visited by an older lady who is giving her money while a young girl accompanies her. These figures are highly idealised and do not correspond to any reality. The faces' delicate features, the cool palette and smoothness of the brushstrokes are reminiscent of the oeuvre of Ingres (1780-1867), whose art can be considered as a forerunner of Romanticism.
These genre scenes were however particularly favoured by Northern Italian artists of the mid century. In the retrospect, these painters fostered somehow the transition between Romanticism and Realism which started around those years. As a matter of fact, on the occasion of the 1869 annual exhibition of the Accademia of Brera, Milan, Domenico Induno (1815-1878), one of the early exponents of the new Realism, gave hospitality to our artist.
Luigi Zuccoli's sentimental style however lacks of personality and belongs to the mainstream of 19th-century academic taste, both it its selection of the exemplary subject matters and in its meticulous execution.

Neo-classicism succeeded to Rococo in the second half of the 18th century. It was stimulated by the archaeological rediscovery of the Roman and Greek antique civilisations and domestic life, especially at Herculaneum from 1738 and Pompeii from 1748. This revived interest for the Antique lifestyle was witnessed in the fine arts by the choice of subject matters inspired by the Antique heroes such as Jacques-Louis David's Andromache Mourning Hector and the Oath of the Horatii (both in Louvre, Paris), which exalted republican heroism.
In the applied and decorative arts, this taste gave birth to furnished interiors that combined Greek and Roman decorative and architectural sources in such examples as James Stuart's Painted Room in Spencer House, London (1759) and sought-after designs by Robert Adam which were circulating thanks to the publication of Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam (London, 1773-9) and eventually became in France the official mode during the Napoleonic age.

Luigi Zuccoli (1815-1876) was born in Milan where he was the pupil of Pelagio Palagi (1775/7-1860). Zuccoli was a patriot and was in exile in London from 1864 to 1868 where he executed a portrait of Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872) who had an important role in the unification of the Italian states. After a short stay in Rome, he came back definitively to Milan where he became an emeritus member of the Accademia of Brera.

This painting is a fine example of Luigi Zoccoli's art, which focused on intimate genre scenes in a late Romantic style. The present painting shows an act of charity: a rich woman giving some money to a poor and beautiful young woman. This painting exalts the sentiment of innocence and social injustice as well as the idea of exempla embodied by the young girl who is implicitly given a lesson of charity. This type of picture was quite popular in Northern Italy in the middle of the century.

1057-1886