Girl with Letter

1797 · Museo d'Arte Moderna, Ca' Pesaro, Venice

portrait

The painting belongs to the sentimental style of portraiture at which Matteini excelled. The girl's graceful pose, her gentle expression, the sobriety of the composition, and the relationship of the figure to the landscape evoke the sophisticated neoclassical tastes also present in contemporary works by artists like Angelica Kauffmann.

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About the Artist

Teodoro Matteini

1754 – 1831

Italian painter. Having studied in Rome with Domenico Corvi and Pompeo Batoni, Matteini moved first to Florence (Angelica and Medoro, 1794) and then to Milan, where he encountered Bossi and Appiani. In 1807, he settled in Venice and taught at the Accademia. A prolific portraitist, he brought new life to the genre by studying the work of Reynolds and Gainsborough.

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