The Prayer

Notes

Born in Rome in 1852 to a tailor and a seamstress, Antonio Mancini showed very early talent in the arts. Mancini was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples at only 12 years old, studying under Domenico Morelli, a painter of historical scenes favouring dramatic chiaroscuro and vigorous brushwork, and Filippo Palizzi. He was also close friends with sculptor Vincenzo Gemito, with whom he shared a poor and difficult youth.

Mancini worked as a foremost figure of Verismo, an indigenous Italian response to 19th century Realist aesthetics. His work commonly depicted children of the poor, juvenile circus performers, and musicians whom he observed in the streets of Naples. Mancini's most distinctive technical trait was the graticola, a system consisting of two identical wooden frames, each strung with strings or wires stretched both vertically and horizontally across their middles to create a grillwork of squares. One of these frames was placed before the artist's canvas, while the second was placed between the artist and the model, providing a screen through which to view the subject. He often allowed these grid marks to appear in the painting. His later works also incorporated impasto elements, working bits of glass, metal foil, and other glittering materials into thick paint to achieve light effects not otherwise obtainable in oil.

Throughout his life, he exhibited in notable institutions such as the Musée d'Orsay, with other works at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome, the Museo Civico-Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Turin, and the De Mesdag Collection in The Hague.