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Attributed to Andrea Torresani (1727-60)

A woman at her toilet c. 1720-30

Bodycolour | 17.2 x 11.3 cm (sheet of paper) | RCIN 907383

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  • A bodycolour drawing of a woman seated at her dressing table in profile to the left, adjusting her cap with her right hand: wearing a white shawl over a grey-green gown; against a black background. See RCIN 907382, the drawing which served as the basis for RCIN 907383-907386.

    This drawing belongs to an album of operatic caricatures mainly by Marco Ricci and Anton Maria Zanetti the Elder, an intact album from the library of Joseph Smith. Zanetti and another Venetian collector, Francesco Algarotti, owned similar albums, with many of the caricatures copied or traced, with identifying inscriptions. Zanetti's album is now in the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, and Algarotti's belongs to Albert Gellman and is in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

    Opera was an important part of Venetian society and culture, and such caricatures were circulated among friends and collectors for light-hearted amusement. Joseph Smith was a keen opera lover who was married to the English opera singer Catherine Tofts (possibly the subject of this drawing) and kept a box at the Teatro San Grisostomo in Venice. He collected operatic caricatures of the singers and performers of the day as well as artists and other well-known characters by Marco Ricci and others, and had them bound into this album. The drawings were shared and circulated among the three collectors and their circle as light-hearted amusement, but the artistic caricature was also a long established practice in Italian art.

    Provenance

    From the collection of Consul Joseph Smith; acquired by George III in 1762

  • Medium and techniques

    Bodycolour

    Measurements

    17.2 x 11.3 cm (sheet of paper)

  • Other number(s)