Luigi Serena (1855 - 1911) Lot n° 3

Louis Serena (1855 - 1911) Portrait of a woman with white veil, 1880-1885 Pencil and charcoal on paper 60.5 x 45.7 cm (light) Signature: "L Serena" on recto Distinctive elements: on verso, label of Banca Popolare di Asolo e Montebelluna with inventory references Provenance: Banca Popolare di Asolo e Montebelluna; Veneto Banca SpA in LCA Bibliography: O. Stefani, "Luigi Serena 1855-1911," Ponzano Veneto, 2006, pp. 169 and 174, ill. 139 Conservation status. Support: 80%. Conservation status. Surface: 80% (foxing) Luigi Serena, painter of choice of the Treviso bourgeoisie at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, had no direct pupils, but was admired by younger artists for his bohemian and anti-bourgeois spirit, even as a moral reference, becoming a milestone in the artistic horizon of the Marca. It was the avant-garde artists, led by Arturo Martini, who promoted Serena's posthumous exhibition shortly after his death in 1911. Although working mainly in the province, the artist successfully participated in the most important exhibitions of the time: in Venice (1881), Milan (1883), Turin (1884), Florence (1886), Paris (1888) and Munich (1890). He was among those invited to the 1897 Venice Biennale (Eugenio Manzato, "Treviso," in "La Pittura in Italia. L'Ottocento," Milan, 1990, p. 213). The sheet was identified by Eugenio Manzato in 2002. "After having carefully studied the subject, Serena highlights, without any hesitation, fundamental characteristics of the physical and character aspect of a human being. (...) In the portrait of a woman with a white veil, Serena masterfully portrays a figure with almost popular features, with pictorial sensitivity in that the various chiaroscuro gradations recall various chromatic intensities, which give the woman's psychological expression a note of absorbed and spiritual emotional intensity" (O. Stefani, "Luigi Serena 1855-1911," Ponzano Veneto, 2006, p. 169).