Beschreibung:

Portrait of a boy from Rome signed, dated and annotated 'R. Locatelli / 1938' (lower right) oil on canvas, 65x50 cm Literature: -Gianni Orsini, 'Romualdo Locatelli, Eternal Green under an Eternal Sun', Amersfoort 2019, ill. p. 103. Provenance: -From the estate of the sitter’s family, Rome. -Private collection, Italy. -Private collection, the Netherlands. Romualdo Locatelli had risen to fame as a portrait painter of the Italian elite during the 1930s. 1938 proved to be pivotal. During that year, he was commissioned to paint the portraits of two Vatican Cardinals, the Italian Crown Prince’s two children, and a second portrait of Benito Mussolini’s daughter, Edda Ciano. During an exhibition in Rome that same year, he met a Dutch couple who were on leave from their work in Bandung. Seeing the larger-than-life paintings by Locatelli, they were awe-struck, and asked him to come to the Dutch East Indies to paint. In December 1938, Locatelli and his wife Erminia boarded the M/V Victoria, and arrived in Batavia in January 1939. To prepare for exhibitions, which would take place in Batavia and Bandung, Locatelli was very prolific and produced almost 50 large paintings of Javanese people and landscapes, within a few months. Apart from that, he took a portfolio of paintings from Rome, showing off his capabilities, to inspire the local elite to commission portraits from him. Among others, a large painting of two girls from Rome, holding a toddler (possibly their little brother?) was taken to the Indies. During a later exhibition, late 1940 in Manila, this painting was illustrated on the back of the exhibition brochure. The current lot is a study of this large composition, portraying the young boy, and revealing his family’s identity; in the lower right corner, Locatelli annotated: ‘alla signora Angelucci, che armonizza in se le virtù della romana, pagana e cristiana’, meaning ‘to Mrs. Angelucci, who finds harmony in the virtues of Roman, pagan and Christian [beliefs]’. This painting must have been a gift to the sitter’s mother, shortly before Locatelli’s departure to Java, which explains why it had remained in Rome. Currently, it proves to be a beautiful precursor of the Indonesian adventure which would make Locatelli’s status and fame even greater. Gianni Orsini MSc., October 2022