TESSARI, ROMOLO (1868-1925)

“A Brief Encounter, Venezia” (1898)
Watercolour
32 x 46cm
Signed lower left
*Boree Carbonne, Parkes
*private collection, Sydney
 
Tessari is an acclaimed Italian Orientalist. He studied the Classics in Vincenzo, and after only one year exhibited at the Trienniale di Brera in Milan in 1894. The following year he exhibited in Turin & Florence. In 1897 he exhibited at the Veneziana International in Milan, where he became a successful and regular exhibitor. This is a prime example of high-end souvenir art for bourgeois tourists of the 'Grand Tour' in the late 19th century. The elongated faces reminds me of Venetian Master, Giovanni Bellini. The unsettling nature of this painting is a precursor to the Magic Realist movement.