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Oil on canvas; signed and inscribed lower left ‘Roma Mancini’
100 x 60.9 cm
120 x 82.5 cm, framed
PROVENANCE
Giuseppe Chichetti, Milan (by 1935);
His sale, Galleria Geri, Milan, 1935, lot 21;
Private collection;
Private collection in the USA since 2002.
EXHIBITED
Düsseldorf, Städtischen Kunstpalast, Internationalen Ausstellung, 1-23 October 1904, Saal 26, no.1034 (as Ein Knabe mit Muscheln);
Milan, Esposizione Nazionale (Sempione), 1906, Sala XLV, no.16 (as Peppino);
Palm Beach, American International Fine Art & Antique Fair, 2008
This painting belongs to Mancini’s celebrated depictions of Neapolitan street boys—the scugnizzi—rendered with both empathy and psychological immediacy. Exhibited in Milan in 1906 under the title Peppino, it portrays a young model holding a spiny shell whose surface catches the light through a mixture of pigment and inclusions. Mancini’s original approach and his groundbreaking use of materials to give paint a tangible, three-dimensional density—anticipating in some ways the material experiments of Burri—astonished contemporary audiences. When this painting was shown in 1906 its daring surface even provoked an act of vandalism: a viewer tore away a small fragment of glass embedded in the paint.
Seen today, The Shell Collector exemplifies Mancini’s ability to turn humble reality into radiance. His thick, shimmering impasto transforms light into substance, fusing technical audacity with profound human presence.