Painting Life Stories: Commendatore del Regno

Raffaello Sorbi (1844-1931), An Outdoor Osteria, 1892, Oil on Canvas, 19 by 31 1/2 in., Private Collection

Suppose you were as good at drawing and painting as Raffaelo Sorbi was in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. You might have been able to carve out a pretty good niche market for yourself, as he did. Sorbi concentrated on painting small, highly detailed historical paintings of gentry and villagers playing games and relaxing together in harmony outside rustic restaurants in the sun-filled Tuscan countryside. He was so successful and his works were so popular that he was awarded the country’s highest honor, Commendatore del Regno, or Order of the Crown of Italy. The order has been suppressed by law since the Republic was founded in 1946. But in Sorbi’s day, it was a very big deal.

I am in awe of all those 19th Century genre painters from Italy, France, Germany, Spain and other European nations. When I first started going to the auction exhibitions of 19th Century European paintings at Sotheby’s and Christie’s in the 1980s, there were literally hundreds of small genre paintings on display, each of them carefully designed and accurately drawn and painted, with lively color and brushwork, and with loads of atmosphere to boot. It wore me out after paying close attention to the first 20 or so, and I was relieved to go to the rooms housing the work of artists who painted on canvases big enough to see some detail without putting your nose to the surface. The exquisite details these genre artists were able to paint on a very small scale is truly amazing. What remarkable control of the medium and the brush they had. Starting their training as kids, they drew accurately with a loaded brush. Most of us today fill in careful drawings with thin paint or simply push the paint around until the detail looks almost as good as a photograph.

I came across the painting reproduced above in a 1988 Sotheby’s London auction catalog I added to my huge collection a few years ago. What a perfect example of genre painting it is. Sorbi has covered his small canvas, only 19 by 31½ in., with eye-catching detail from north to south and from east to west, leading the viewer on a relaxing, casual stroll through his vivacious and charming 18th Century mise en scene. The placement of the central figures and the little bits at the corners and edges of the canvas make for a very pleasant visual entertainment. The balance of all the elements in this painting is outstanding.

Little did I know Sorbi had done dozens of similar paintings with a dependable cast of characters that he used interchangeably for these outdoor café scenes, most featuring an attractive waitress standing in a prominent location, with the action swirling all around. Sorbi’s romantically nostalgic paintings depicting good times in the beautiful Tuscan countryside of 18th Century Italy are said to have appealed to the 19th Century Italian reunification wish for all social classes to live in harmony. Sorbi made a very good living selling his work through important picture dealers in Paris, London, Munich and Berlin.

The brilliant, sun-dappled effects in Sorbi’s paintings indicate his affinity for the Macchiaioli plein air movement that developed in his native Tuscany in the mid-19th century as an antidote to the studio paintings of the academics. The Macchiaioli artists focused their attention on nature by recording the effects of light, shadow and atmosphere in their paintings, while often commenting on current socio-political topics.

Sorbi was born in Florence in 1844 and died there in 1931. He studied design and painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, where he was heavily influenced by Antonio Ciseri (1821-1891), a painter of portraits and historical subjects. Before turning to depictions of an idyllic 18th Century rural Italy, he painted a number of classical subjects inspired by Pompeii, the ruins of which were a popular stop on the Grand Tour.