Lorenzo Cecconi (13 August 1863 – April 1947) was an Italian painter, restorer, and curator.

Background

Born in Rome, Lorenzo Cecconi was the son of a painting restorer. He studied in Rome at the Accademia di San Luca, under the guidance of

Aurelio Tiratelli Aurelio Tiratelli (1842 – 1900) was an Italian painter, mainly of country scenes with animals. He was born in Rome, and studied there at the Accademia di San Luca under Minardi, Alessandro Capalti, and Francesco Podesti for design and paintin ...

. He painted in oil and

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 ...

, focusing on rural landscapes and figures, such as the Lavandaie di Ceccano, a painting that was exhibited at the Amatori e Cultori Society in Rome in 1886. He preferred the tonal range of greens and grays, to represent the light effect, a little melancholy, of the rain and the overcast sky. Among his works: ''Pineta di Ostia'' and ''Collection of Reeds''. 1890: at the International Exhibition of the City of Rome some works by Lorenzo Cecconi, including ''Verso sera'' (painting which is considered his masterpiece) and ''Returning from the country'', are noted by Giovanni Costa (called Nino). King Umberto I purchases one of his paintings.
1900: his landscapes, ''The torrent'' and ''Autumn rain'' are exhibited at the Milan Triennale. 1901: his painting ''Between yes and no'' is exhibited at the Roman exhibition of the In arte libertas Association.
1902: ''Farewell'' is exposed. In 1904, Cecconi entered the "XXV della Campagna Romana", with the nickname "Chanterelle".Tempesta, C audia( .d.br>'COLEMAN, Enrico (Henry)'
in ''Dizionario Biografico - Treccani'' (in Italian) Accessed September 2011.
1913: When the stolen '' Mona Lisa'' was recovered in 1913, after having been taken from the Louvre some years earlier, Cecconi was called on by the Italian government to examine the picture and ascertain whether it had received any damage, giving Cecconi "a unique opportunity of knowing every detail of the Louvre picture".John R. Eyre, ''The Two Mona Lisas: Which was Giacondo's Picture?'' (J.M. Ouseley and Son, Ltd., 1923), p. 34.

As Curator

While Cecconi was serving as curator of the Academy of Santa Luca, he called at the Grand Hotel and spent a considerable time minutely examining the ''

Isleworth Mona Lisa The ''Isleworth Mona Lisa'' is an early sixteenth-century oil on canvas painting depicting the same subject as Leonardo da Vinci's ''Mona Lisa'', though with the subject ( Lisa del Giocondo) depicted as being a younger age. The painting is thou ...

'', finding of the painting that "this is an original of

Leonardo Leonardo is a masculine given name, the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese equivalent of the English, German, and Dutch name, Leonard Leonard or ''Leo'' is a common English masculine given name and a surname. The given name and surname originate ...

: the '

morbidezza Morbidezza is a Renaissance artistic concept that describes an naturalistic delicacy in flesh tones. It can also describe pejoratively as being soft, weak, and effeminate. The term was coined by the Florentine philosopher Marsilio Ficino Mar ...

', the condition of the ' crepatura' are unique and exactly equivalent to that of the Louvre example". He later wrote a letter expanding on this assessment, stating: From his long stay in India to carry out restorations, Cecconi reported studies of oriental taste that he exhibited at the Colonial Exhibition of 1934. He has also participated in exhibitions in

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

, Naples, Berlin, Vienna, Barcelona and Chicago. He twice won the "Werstappen" landscape prize, offered by the Accademia di San Luca.

Restoration of Ajanta Ellora caves

During the early 1920s, the Ajanta site was in the territory of the

princely state A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Raj, British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, ...

of the Hyderabad, India. and (the last Nizam of Hyderabad) appointed experts to restore the artwork, converted the site into a museum and built a road to enable tourists come to the site. The Nizam's Director of Archaeology obtained the services of Professor Lorenzo Cecconi, assisted by Count Orsini, to restore the paintings in the caves. The Director of Archaeology for the last Nizam of Hyderabad said of the work of Cecconi and Orsini:

Bibliography

*Renato Mammucari, the 25th of the Roman countryside, Albano Laziale, Vela, 1984. Preface by Paolo Emilio Trastulli *Renato Mammucari, The painters of mal'aria: from the Roman countryside to the Pontine Marshes: views and customs of the Agro through the paintings of Italian and foreign artists who left their memory before the radical transformation of the environment and the territory, Rome, Newton & Compton, 1988. Co-author Rigel Langella. *Lando Scotoni, Geographical definition of the Roman countryside, in Acts of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Class of Moral, Historical and Philological Sciences, Rendiconti, series 9, v. 4, fasc. 4, 390 (1993). *Renato Mammucari, Roman countryside: geographical maps - perspective plans - panoramic views - picturesque costumes, Città di Castello, Edimond, 2002. *Renato Mammucari, the 25th of the Roman countryside: 1904-2004, Marigliano, LER, 2005. *Richard Cohen, Beyond Enlightenment: Buddhism, Religion, Modernity (2006), p. 51.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cecconi, Lorenzo 1863 births 1947 deaths Italian painters Painters from Rome Curators from Rome