Francesco Anelli

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Portrait of Julia Gardiner Tyler
Anelli's oil portrait of President John Tyler's second wife, Julia Gardiner Tyler

Francesco Anelli (1805–1878) was an Italian-American

Romantic period artist. He is best known for his oil painting that depicts Julia Gardiner Tyler, the second wife of the 10th U.S. President John Tyler.[1][2] Anelli's monumental masterpiece and most acclaimed painting, entitled The End of the World, has been lost.[3]

Early life

Anelli was quite celebrated in his own time, especially for his monumental work called The End of the World.

Milan in about 1835. Almost immediately Anelli attracted a good deal of attention, not for his portraits, but for his gigantic apocalyptic historical pictures, beginning with his rendering of a family group during the Deluge, which was the principal work in an exhibition of his pictures shown in rooms at the New York Athenaeum on Chambers Street at the end of 1836.[3]

Portrait style

Anelli's portrait style is distinctive—in its sharp linearity, bright lighting, and highly reflective surfaces—and appears the antithesis of the dominant romantic approach to portraiture practiced contemporaneously by

Samuel F. B. Morse (1791–1872). Anelli's manner corresponded to that practiced by other immigrant Italian and German painters such as Spiridione Gambardella (active 1838–39), Gherlando Marsiglia (1792–1850), and Christian Mayr (about 1805–1851), whose works are all relatively little known today. In 1839 the painter-critic John Kenrick Fisher (born 1807) distinguished these portraitists, along with Charles Cromwell Ingham (1796–1863), as the practitioners of an exceptional and distinctive style, which he denounced as "prompted and encouraged by an aberration of the public taste."[3]

In 1843 Anelli had on his easel Conrad and Medora (unlocated) taken from Lord Byron's Corsair, while his most acclaimed painting was the Opening of the Sixth Seal, or The End of the World (unlocated),[4] which was shown at the Apollo Rooms at 410 Broadway in New York City in April 1844.[5] This picture—which offered the light and promise of Christianity as humanity's only spiritual salvation in the face of utter annihilation—displayed lurid light effects complete with dark clouds, bloody skies and lightning, and centered on a figure representing the church, or the spouse of Christ, with a crumbling temple and a bewildered and terrified multitude of sinners, both repentant and unrepentant, in a "grand catastrophe".[5][6] The picture, hailed in the press as the largest painting in America—measuring 23 feet by 19 feet—was described as a masterwork and considered the "Boldest attempt at the highest effect in art, which has yet been made on this side of the Atlantic." Anelli toured his masterwork through the northeastern United States and continued to create allegorical compositions derived from historical and biblical sources.[3]

In the early decades of the 19th century, apocalyptic fascination was manifest visually by such artists as Benjamin West, Rembrandt Peale, and Washington Allston. The End of the World, which was exhibited in New York, Boston, Portland, Maine, and Brooklyn from 1844 through at least 1850, attests to this continued apocalyptic tradition. Anelli, whose stated aim was "to represent a great catastrophe to the world" and not "a doctrine", claimed he had no wish to engage in arguments with philosophers or naturalists concerning the particulars of this catastrophe.[6]

Diogenes Successful

In the

Diogenes had finally located his truly "honest man" in the person of George Washington
.

Boston Athenaeum, and the National Academy of Design

When Anelli first began to contribute paintings to the annual exhibitions held at the Boston Athenaeum and the National Academy of Design, New York, he showed only portraits. Probably the most notable of these is the depiction of Julia Gardiner Tyler (1820–1889), the second wife of the 10th U.S. President John Tyler.

Portrait of a Child as Cupid

Portrait of William Paterson Van Rensselaer, Jr.
Anelli's oil painting, Portrait of a Child as Cupid, depicting young William Paterson Van Rensselaer, Jr., c. 1836–37

Anelli's Portrait of a Child as Cupid—depicting William Paterson Van Rensselaer, Jr.—was painted in New York City and was commissioned by the subject's father,

Albany Institute of History and Art
).

Anelli's records of other sitters suggest that he drew his patronage from New York State citizens of upper classes.

National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C.).[3]

Death

Anelli died in 1878. His diary is on display at the Frick Art Reference Library in New York City.

Gallery

  • c. 1838 oil by Anelli of Garret Decker Hasbrouck (1810–1888)
    c. 1838 oil by Anelli of Garret Decker Hasbrouck (1810–1888)
  • c. 1838 oil by Anelli of Julia Lawrence Hasbrouck (1809–1873)
    c. 1838 oil by Anelli of Julia Lawrence Hasbrouck (1809–1873)

References

  1. ^ Flambeau, Victor (18 December 1921). "Little-Known Portraits of U.S. Presidents in Capital are Catalogued by Flambeau in Exhaustive Research". The Washington Times. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Retrieved 5 April 2015.
  2. ISBN 9780313281686
    . Retrieved 5 April 2015.
  3. ^
    ISBN 9781555951016. Retrieved 4 April 2015. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help
    )
  4. ^ "Biography of Francesco Anelli". askart.com. Retrieved 4 April 2015.
  5. ^ a b "Exhibition: The Grand Original Tableau". New York Tribune. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 17 April 1844. Retrieved 5 April 2015.
  6. ^
    ISBN 9781584650065
    . Retrieved 5 April 2015.
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