Giulio Rosati (Rome 1858-1917)

The Italian Orientalists specializing in watercolor all worked in close proximity to one another on the Via Margutta in Rome. Of the group, which included Giuseppe Aureli, Ettore Simonetti and Enrico Tarenghi, Giulio Rosati was the most accomplished. The highly-finished style he achieved is comparable to the hyper-realist oil paintings of artists such as Ludwig Deutsch and Jean Léon Gérôme.

In his work, Rosati concentrated on the artefacts and customs of the Middle East, which so intrigued his Western audience. The artist's love of brilliant colors and his meticulous attention to detail, particularly evident here in his rendering of carpets and fabrics, brought to life the photographs he used as inspiration. As with many of his French and Italian contemporaries, Rosati collected a great number of Middle-Eastern objects, which woven into his compositions add a further dimension of authenticity to his work.