ANCONA, Vito d' - b. 1825 Pesaro, d. 1884 Firenze

Italian painter of the Macchiaioli group. He was born in Pesaro to a wealthy Jewish family. He began his artistic training in Florence, and in 1844 was admitted to the Accademia di Belle Arti, where he studied under Giuseppe Bezzuoli. He was a friend of Serafino De Tivoli, and joined him in painting landscapes en plein air. In 1848 he fought as a Tuscan volunteer for Garibaldi in the Risorgimento. During the 1850s he became acquainted with the artists who frequented the Caffè Michelangiolo in Florence, who would soon be known as the Macchiaioli.

D’Ancona achieved success as a portrait painter, and few of his landscape paintings can be traced today. His Woman at the Races (ca. 1873) reveals the influence of Japonisme he had absorbed while living in Paris between 1867 and 1874. His health disintegrated in the mid-1870s, and he ceased painting in 1878. He died in Florence on January 9, 1884.

Collections holding works by Vito D’Ancona include the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

Portrait of Gioacchino Rossini

D’Ancona moved to Paris in 1868, the year the composer of such famous operas like the Barber of Seville and Cinderella died. This posthumous portrait of Rossini, who spent several decades in the French capital where he was known for his sharp wit, appears to have been executed from a photograph, as its oval format may indicate. In the wave of renewed Italian nationalism, the painting may have been intended as a symbolic gesture to bring the Italian composer back to his native country.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 8 minutes):

Gioacchino Rossini: L’Italiana in Algeri, overture