Studio RT Ltd

Description

We are offering this large portrait Pastel on canvas by the Italian, 19th Century portraitist Giulia M. Sartoni, who has signed the portrait to the lower left and inscribed it beneath her signature Firenze (Florence). The portrait depicts a well dressed Italian mother standing behind her two daughters. The mother and the elder daughter, who must be in her late teens or early twenties as she has her hair up, are both wearing pastel colours and jewellery. The younger daughter, to her mother's right, has her brown hair down to her shoulders and is wearing brighter coloured clothing and no jewellery.

Giulia Sartoni lived in Florence and, from the dates on some of her portraits, was obviously working around the 1870s/1880s. As she was Italian, we do not have access to genealogical sites in that country, but artprice.com give her dates as 1850-1946, which would tie in nicely with the dated works. Some sites say she is early 20th Century, but we have found no work dated after 1900.

She painted only portraits and seems to have painted visitors to Florence, as we found she had painted the portrait in that city of a lady who was half English, half Maori and the photograph of that portrait is in the National Library of New Zealand. She also did pastel portraits of Sir William and Lady Crookes, as these oval portraits came up at Bonhams on 28th November, 2007 estimated at £3-5,000. In general, her work has achieved high prices.

Her work rarely comes to the market, but a few are listed on artprice.com, arcadja.com, findartinfo.com and askart.com, who show a pastel copy of a well known self-portrait by Madame Vigee le Brun. There are also a few examples of google images, not shown on the above sites.

The pastel is glazed and has been newly framed in an ornate, 2 3/4" bronze & gilt frame, which suits it very well. It will be supplied wired and ready to hang.

Image size: 33" x 28" - 83.85cm x 71.1cm

Frame size: 38 7/8" x 33 3/4" - 98.85cm x 85.75cm

Medium: Pastels on canvas

Condition: Very, very good. There is no damage to the canvas or the pastel surface and the frame is new.