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Italian Midday (Italian Girl Picking Grapes). 1827
Brullov Karl,
Oil on сanvas
64 x 55
State Russian Museum
Annotation click to expand contents
Karl Brullov painted this small canvas as a pair to the composition Italian Morning (1823, Kunsthalle, Kiel, Germany), which had received a favourable reception in St Petersburg. Tsar Nicholas I commissioned the work from Brullov through the Society for the Encouragement of Artists in 1826. In March 1827, Brullov wrote to the Society for the Encouragement of Artists: “My main activity now consists of finishing the painting for His Majesty.” Italian Midday (Italian Girl Picking Grapes) was finished in June 1827.
It was sent to St Petersburg in August 1827 through the Russian consulate in Rome. Although both paintings, Italian Morning and Italian Midday, hung in the private chambers of Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna in the Winter Palace, they could still be seen by artists and the public. In his diary entry for 14 October 1835, Apollon Mokritsky records a visit that he and Alexei Venetsianov made to the Empress’s boudoir in order to inspect Brullov’s works. A great many copies of the painting were made from the 1850s onwards.
Author's Biography click to expand contents
Brullov Karl
Brullov (Bruleau), Karl Pavlovich
1799, St Petersburg -1852, Manziana (near Rome)
Painter, watercolourist, draughtsman, history painter, portraitist, genre painter, mural painter. Born into an artistic family. Studied under Anton Ivanov, Alexei Yegorov and Vasily Shebuyev at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1809-22), graduated with a first-class gold medal. Sent to Italy by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts (1822-35). Worked in Milan, Naples and Rome. Won fame in Europe as a portraitist and history painter for such works as The Last Day of Pompeii (1827-33, Russian Museum. St Petersburg)- Returned to Russia and lived in St Petersburg. Honorary freeman (1834), second-degree professor (1835) and first-degree professor (1846) of the Imperial Academy of Arts, where he taught history painting, enjoying the love and respect of his many students. Professor of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. Contributed to exhibitions in Rome, Milan, Paris and St Petersburg. Went abroad on the advice of doctors (1849), settled in Italy (1850).