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Oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right: Silvio Bicchi 912
135 × 135 cm
Provenance
Farsettiarte, XIX and XX Century Paintings and Sculptures, 25 October 2025, lot 112;
Private collection, United Kingdom.
Like many Tuscan artists of his generation, Silvio Bicchi was trained in a milieu deeply shaped by the legacy of Giovanni Fattori and the broader experience of the Macchiaioli. Although critical attention devoted to the painter remains relatively limited, he enjoyed considerable success during his lifetime on the international stage.
His career included periods spent in Paris — where he moved in 1906, the same year as his fellow Livorno-born artist Amedeo Modigliani — and in London. He also achieved notable recognition in the United States, where he resided for several years; in 1893 he won the competition for the doors of the Boston Public Library. Upon returning to Italy, he continued to work primarily on popular genre subjects, favouring tempera and pastel techniques, and exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1914 and 1918.
In this impressive portrait, dated 1912 and thus executed in Rimini, at the height of his international reputation, Bicchi demonstrates a clear awareness of the refined language of Belle Époque portraiture. The relaxed pose, elegant attire, and the sitter’s sudden, attentive glance evoke models associated with James Abbott McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent, here reinterpreted through the painter’s own sensibility. The studio setting and informal staging suggest a moment of familiar encounter, transforming the image into a poised yet intimate statement of modern portraiture.
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Oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right: Silvio Bicchi 912
135 × 135 cm
Provenance
Farsettiarte, XIX and XX Century Paintings and Sculptures, 25 October 2025, lot 112;
Private collection, United Kingdom.
Like many Tuscan artists of his generation, Silvio Bicchi was trained in a milieu deeply shaped by the legacy of Giovanni Fattori and the broader experience of the Macchiaioli. Although critical attention devoted to the painter remains relatively limited, he enjoyed considerable success during his lifetime on the international stage.
His career included periods spent in Paris — where he moved in 1906, the same year as his fellow Livorno-born artist Amedeo Modigliani — and in London. He also achieved notable recognition in the United States, where he resided for several years; in 1893 he won the competition for the doors of the Boston Public Library. Upon returning to Italy, he continued to work primarily on popular genre subjects, favouring tempera and pastel techniques, and exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1914 and 1918.
In this impressive portrait, dated 1912 and thus executed in Rimini, at the height of his international reputation, Bicchi demonstrates a clear awareness of the refined language of Belle Époque portraiture. The relaxed pose, elegant attire, and the sitter’s sudden, attentive glance evoke models associated with James Abbott McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent, here reinterpreted through the painter’s own sensibility. The studio setting and informal staging suggest a moment of familiar encounter, transforming the image into a poised yet intimate statement of modern portraiture.
DOWNLOAD PDF