Signora in rosso - Cristiano Banti

(Santa Croce sull'Arno (PI) 1824 - Montemurlo (PO) 1904)
Cm 19,5x9,5 | In 7.68x3.74
Oil on panel
Cristiano Banti, born in Santa Croce sull'Arno in the province of Pisa to a wealthy bourgeois family, was a painter of neoclassical academic training soon outgrown to approach the ways of the Macchiaioli with whom he came into contact after moving to Florence in 1854. He painted mainly pictures of historical subjects, but above all he painted for himself being of such affluent economic condition that he could afford to accommodate in the villas of Montorsoli and Montemurlo, inherited from the Marquise Vettori, artist friends in difficulty. He was a great friend of Telemaco Signorini and Vincenzo Cabianca with whom he went to La Spezia to experiment with the Macchiaioli vision; he also frequented Giovanni Boldini: of all these artists he collected many works along with those of other significant painters of his contemporaries such as Silvestro Lega, Giovanni Fattori, Giuseppe Abbati and Antonio Fontanesi. His collection, which was dispersed after his death, also included some Corots and Courbets resulting from his Parisian experiences. In 1870 he served on the jury of the National Exhibition in Parma. In 1884 he joined the reorganizing commission of the Uffizi and was appointed professor at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. He died at his wife's villa in Montemurlo in 1904 at the age of eighty.