Lot 1238 | Reading Girl

ZANDOMENEGHI, FEDERICO
1841 Venice - 1917 Paris


Title: Reading Girl.
Technique: Pastel on paper.
Measurement: 65 x
48,5cm. Frame/Pedestal: Framed.
Studio stamp of the artist lower left.

Verso behind the card:
Numerous gallery labels.

Provenance:
Private ownership, Italy.

Federico Zandomeneghi is one of the leading exponents of international Impressionism. He was trained in Venice by his father Pietro and his uncle Luigi, famous sculptors and creators of the monument to Titian in the Basilica of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, but decided against becoming a sculptor, preferring to devote himself to painting, which was more suited to his sensibility and way of expressing himself.
From 1862 the artist was in Florence with the group "Macchiaioli", where he stayed for five years. In 1874 he travelled to Paris, where he wanted to study the new painting of the Impressionists in the original. Originally he was only supposed to stay for a few weeks, but in the end he stayed for a total of 43 years until his death.
In Paris, the young Zandomeneghi was immediately curious and able to absorb the new trends. He was represented by the famous Parisian dealer Paul Durant-Ruel, who ensured the exclusivity of his production. Yet he remained less well-known than Edgar Degas and Pierre Renoir, the two painters with whom his art is most closely related. Today, however, after almost a century and a half, we can clearly see how originally Zandomeneghi executed his works.
As a first-class colourist and "dessinateur formidable", as his French colleagues called him, the Italian - after almost falling into oblivion in the years following his death - once again occupies a prominent place in the history of Italian-French painting. His paintings - especially his pastels - stand comparison with the most famous masters of French Impressionism.
Zandomeneghi painted mainly flowers and female figures, but also landscapes and exemplary portraits, such as that of the Italian art critic Diego Martelli.
The present pastel shows a private moment of a young girl absorbed in reading a book. The artist immortalises an everyday situation of the sitter who, absorbed in her thoughts and the plot of the book, does not notice - or perhaps ignores - Zandomeneghi's presence. With delicate brushstrokes, he breaks down the depiction into subtle and vivid patterns of light, creating the impression of time standing still, of a stolen moment that lasts forever.