U baldo G andolfi
San Matteo della Decima (Bologna) 1728 - Ravenna 1781
19. Bust of a child with his head turned downwards to the left
Oil on paper glued to canvas
230 x 300 mm
Provenance:
Venice, private collection; Florence, private collection.
A poignantly tender image of childhood, this exquisite painting - rapidly sketched and rendered through the
soft and sensuous matter of translucent paint – is fruit of the confident talent of the Bolognese painter Ubaldo
Gandolfi, one of the leading figures in the pictorial culture of late eighteenth-century Italy.
For a most immediate comparison, see Bust of nude child 1 , an alla prima study of an infant in all the enchanting
softness of childhood, which used to be part of Count Gregorio Casali Bentivoglio Paleotti’s collection, good
friend and passionate collector of his comrade’s oeuvres. The above-mentioned painting was shown at the Bologna
exhibition of 1935 and that of 1979; the critics who have dealt with these events (respectively Longhi 2 and
then Volpe 3 ) have stressed Gandolfi’s extraordinary aptitude toward expressing affection. His mental freedom, so
clearly demonstrated by the results achieved in this typically eighteenth-century genre – or rather the naturalistic
study – prove it to be amongst the most authentic and vital of that time in Europe.
The face of this little boy, with his long eyelashes, pink cheeks and soft childhood flesh, is of such expressive
immediacy as to lead us to suppose that it was inspired by a model considerably dear to him – in line with that
poetic of the affections of which he was a master. In his several naturalistic studies, at times commissioned by
collectors, enthusiasts and friends, or even painted simply for himself, he succeeded in conveying a tangible and
authentic humanity; the pictorial response to the tenets of a philosophy that set man and his destiny at the centre
of history and of the world. The intense poetry of this exquisite painting is far from inspiring philosophical
considerations. Despite such felicity in both the pose and the rendering, Gandolfi’s desire was rather to transform
in magnificent painting the mobility and nobility of human countenance and its different expressions, with an
almost enlightened understanding of the prevalence of objectivity in the study of the real.
( DBM )