Veduta delle Rovine dell'Antico Teatro di Taormina in Sicilia

View of the Greek Theater and the city of Taormina drawn and engraved by Angiolo Angiolini.

Etching and aquatint, 1807, signed and dated on plate Angiolo Angiolini fece 1807. Below the title we find the dedication “Al Nobil Sig.r Marchese Cav:re Pietro Rinuccini”.

The work belongs to a very rare unidentified series of large-format views of Italy made in the early 1800s.

Angiolini was active in Florence between 1805 and 1822. After attending the Accademia di Belle Arti in the first decade of the century, the artist devoted himself in 1814 to his first fresco decoration of a landscape subject, executed in the Palazzo Strozzi di Mantova in Florence. With decorations of the same kind, 'a paese,' he frescoed other Florentine palaces including Palazzo Giuntini and Palazzo Pitti, where he decorated a room with seascapes, as part of the renovation work on the palace, promoted by Ferdinand III of Lorraine. In 1822 he participated in the decoration of Palazzo Borghese, then built by G. Baccani, where he painted two ceilings with mythological scenes: one with Minerva and the other with the Triumph of Rocco. In 1805, four of his views were exhibited during the Academy's annual competition, along with works by other students. Devoted mainly to fresco painting, he shows compositional similarities with the painter Niccolò Contestabile.

Magnificent proof, printed with brown ink on contemporary laid paper, with margins, slight oxidation, otherwise in excellent condition. Very rare work.

Bibliografia

La raccolta di stampe "Angelo Davoli". Volume primo A-Bio; Thieme-Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler, Leipzig 1992; A. M. Comanducci, Dizionario illustrato dei pittori e incisori italiani moderni, Milano 1962.