Riccardo Nobili (1859 in
Florence – 1939 in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
) was an Italian painter, writer, and antiquarian.
Biography
Nobili was born in Florence, then in the
grand Duchy of Tuscany
The Grand Duchy of Tuscany ( it, Granducato di Toscana; la, Magnus Ducatus Etruriae) was an Italian monarchy that existed, with interruptions, from 1569 to 1859, replacing the Republic of Florence. The grand duchy's capital was Florence. In th ...
, but part of the Kinbgdom of Italy when it was formed in 1861, but moved to Paris as an adult. His mother,
Elena Nobili
Elena Nobili (1833–1900) was an Italian painter, mainly of genre figure paintings.
She was born in Florence. Her son, Riccardo Nobili (1859–1939), was also a painter. Among her works are ''Reietti!'' (Exhibition of Turin, 1884); ''Bonaccia ...
(born 1833), was a painter. He studied painting at the
Academy of Fine Arts of Florence
The Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze ("academy of fine arts of Florence") is an instructional art academy in Florence, in Tuscany, in central Italy.
It was founded by Cosimo I de' Medici in 1563, under the influence of Giorgio Vasari. M ...
under
Antonio Ciseri
Antonio Ciseri (25 October 1821 – 8 March 1891) was a Swiss-Italian painter of religious subjects.
Biography
He was born in Ronco sopra Ascona, Switzerland. He went to Florence in 1833 to study drawing with Ernesto Bonaiuti. Within a year, ...
and
Telemaco Signorini
Telemaco Signorini (; August 18, 1835 – February 10, 1901) was an Italian artist who belonged to the group known as the Macchiaioli.
Biography
He was born in the Santa Croce quarter of Florence, and showed an early inclination toward the st ...
, attending also the Scuola Libera del Nudo. In Paris, he frequented the l’Académie Julian. He specialized in
Genre painting
Genre painting (or petit genre), a form of genre art, depicts aspects of everyday life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. One common definition of a genre scene is that it shows figures to whom no identity can be attached ...
. He exhibited at Livorno, in 1886, the small canvases ''Pioggia e In birreria'', and at the 1887 Società Promotrice, he displayed the nostalgic vedute of ''La piazza del Vecchio Mercato, Florence'', a view of a neighborhood destroyed during the urban renewal of the late 19th-century. Among other works are: ''L'amor mio verrà dal mare''. In 1938, he painted a portrait of Gioconda Mary Hulton (1887–1940) found at
Attingham Park in England.
Nobili also became a novelist and a writer on the subject of art forgeries. His novel ''A Modern Antique: A Florentine Story'' documents events surrounding an appraiser of Italian Renaissance works. He is better remembered for his text on the ''Gentle art of faking; a history of the methods of producing imitations & spurious works of art from the earliest times to the present'' (1922)
In 1933, Nobili married
Grace Cleveland Porter (1880-1953), the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Dodge Porter, and the grand-niece of President
Grover Cleveland. She volunteered in Italy during World War I as a nurse with the Red Cross in an Italian hospital, and as Director of Recreation Services in Italian War Hospitals in Rome under the auspices of the YMCA. She wrote ''Negro Folk Singing Games and Folk Games of the Habitants'' and ''Mammina Graziosa'' (1916). Nobili received awards and decorations from the Italian government for her war service. Owing to her extraordinary service to Italy, despite being a Protestant, she was granted special permission to be buried next to her husband in the family chapel near Florence. Her papers were left to
Smith College
Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith (Smith College ...
.
Sophia Smith Collections
of Smith College.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Nobili, Riccardo
1859 births
1939 deaths
Painters from Florence
19th-century Italian painters
Italian male painters
20th-century Italian painters
Italian antiquarians
Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze alumni
19th-century Italian male artists
20th-century Italian male artists
Italian emigrants to France