Achille Vertunni (1826 - 1897), Fishermen At Dawn

Achille Vertunni (1826 - 1897)

Fishermen at dawn

Oil on canvas applied on masonite, cm 110 x 61

With frame, cm 132 x 85

Signed in the lower left: A. Vertunni Roma

This work is signed by the Neapolitan artist Achille Vertunni (1826-1897), an important exponent of nineteenth century realism. Coming from a wealthy family in the city of Naples, he decided to pursue a career as an artist against the wishes of his parents who wanted him to be an architect; he attended the Royal Academy and later went to the school of Giuseppe Bonolis, his future teacher, from whom he learned the Realist lesson and in whose school he managed to find young colleagues with whom to share both artistic and political experiences, coming to participate in the revolutionary movements that broke out in Naples in 1848. The anti-academicism, together with the general rejection of neoclassical formalism, were the first indicators that traced its maturity, culminating in subjects related to the romantic tradition before and in paintings with the landscape increasingly protagonist later. Among the highest points we can mention the Pía de' Tolomei and Dante in the forest, a work still linked to historical landscaping, while views of towns, villages or views of nature range from its Campania, Passing through Venice and the villages of its lagoon and to the countryside around Rome, where he moved in 1853. Here he founded his own studio and set up in his home, a studio equipped with its own collection of objects, furniture and works from all eras, very appreciated by clients, customers and colleagues who had the good fortune to visit it. Its fame reached international dimensions, meeting the appreciation of the Italian and European high bourgeoisie especially for the subjects of veristic mold where the landscape dominates the human figure without supplanting it entirely but, Indeed, integrating it and obtaining its valorization and measurement.