Vittorio Matteo Corcos (Livorno, 4 October 1859 - Florence, 8 November 1933)

Portrait of Madame L Cappiello

oil on cardboard, 1909

54 x 61,5 cm.

Vittorio Matteo Corcos was a painter of Leghorn origin, active mainly from the last twenty years of the nineteenth century. After a period of training, first in Florence and then in Naples, under the guidance of Domenico Morelli, in 1880 he left for Paris to perfect himself and begin his artistic career. Here he was able to get in touch with the Goupil art house to which he was linked for more than a decade: in fact, he signed a fifteen-year contract, from 1881 to 1896. The working relationship with Adolphe Goupil, a farsighted merchant who built an empire on the art trade, launched it on the European market and decreed its success.

In particular, Corcos specialized in portraiture: it was in this genre that he had great professional success. For his portraits he became one of the symbolic artists of the Belle Époque. The work in question belongs to this production. This is the portrait of Madame Cappiello, whose real name was Suzanne Meyer; the lady was the wife of Leonetto Cappiello, a painter of Leghorn origin, like Corcos. This work was painted in 1909 and dedicated to the lady.

The portrait, however, differs from his others for the pictorial style. While his stroke is usually precise and careful, here he uses faster and more vibrant brushstrokes, like those of his peer and companion in adventure in Paris under the Maison Goupil Giovanni Boldini. Both, in addition to being professionally respected, were in demand for their mastery of portraying the European aristocracy of the time.

In addition to this, on the back of the painting there is a small sketch, probably a scene of the intimate life of the person portrayed which testifies to the bond between the two painters.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: catalog of the Corcos exhibition. The dreams of the Belle Époque, I. Taddei, F. Mazzocca, C. Sisi (edited by), 2014, Palazzo Zabarella, Padua.

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