Domenico Morelli (Naples 1826-1901)

Morelli never travelled outside Europe, but his knowledge of Oriental and Middle-Eastern cultures was nourished by reading sources like Washington Irving's Lives of Mahomet and his successors (1850) and his friendship with Lawrence Alma Tadema, who sent him photographs and postcards from his journeys. Datable to the 1870's, this sheet fits into a group of studies dedicated to Semitic cultures, divided between the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome and the Galleria Civica di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Turin (C. Poppi, Domenico Morelli. Il pensiero disegnato, Turin, 2001). Using red chalk alone, Morelli's attention is focused on the polished definition of the man's face. We are grateful to Anna Villari for her assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.