Anna Tonelli, née Anna Nistri ( – 1846) was an Italian portrait painter, active in the late 18th century and early 19th century primarily in Florence and London. She often worked on

miniature painting Miniature painting may refer to: * Miniature (illuminated manuscript), a small illustration used to decorate an illuminated manuscript * Persian miniature, a small painting on paper in the Persian tradition, for a book or album * Ottoman miniature, ...

watercolors Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

, and

pastels A pastel () is an art medium in a variety of forms including a stick, a square a pebble or a pan of color; though other forms are possible; they consist of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those use ...

Biography

Anna Nistri was born circa 1763 in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

, Italy. In 1785, she married Italian violinist and composer, :it:Luigi Tonelli and together they had two children. It is thought she received training in fine art from Giuseppe Piattoli in Florence. Early in her career she painted portraits of Henry Blundell and Edward Clive, Earl of Powis. From 1794, she lived in London, where she taught the Clive's children in drawing and exhibited twice at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1794 and 1797. From 1798 to 1801, she accompanied the Clive family a trip to India, where she worked primarily in watercolors. After the trip to India she returned to Italy to be with her family. Her work is included in public museum collections including the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, the

Holburne Museum The Holburne Museum (formerly known as the Holburne of Menstrie Museum and the Holburne Museum of Art) is located in Sydney Pleasure Gardens, Bath, Somerset, England. The city's first public art gallery, the Grade I listed building, is home to ...

, National Gallery of Art, among others.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tonelli, Anna 1763 births 1846 deaths Painters from Florence 18th-century Italian women artists Italian portrait painters 19th-century Italian women artists Italian women painters