Date
1861-1870
Object Type
Photograph
Subject
Francesco Hayez, sketch for Meditation on the History of Italy, later painted in 1850.
Holding institution
Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera
About The Work
The photographic reproduction of the Sketch for the Meditation on the History of Italy, a work by Francesco Hayez, is recorded in the collection of the Brera Academy of Fine Arts among the bequest donated by the painter himself by 1870. The engraving of the preparatory sketch for Meditation on the History of Italy dates to around 1850 and depicts a melancholy young woman with downcast eyes, seated on a stool as she looks at a book resting on her lap. The young woman wears only a white chemise that leaves her right breast exposed. The iconographic theme—used by Romantic artists to illustrate the emotional torments of a young woman—is here reinterpreted as an allegorical personification of Italy reflecting on the failure of the revolutionary uprisings of 1848 against the Habsburg Empire. This interpretation is confirmed by the inscription on the spine of the book (Storia d’Italia). The painting was executed for the poet Andrea Maffei. A second version of the work exists, differing in tone, pose, and in the absence of certain objects, such as a cross in the foreground. The photograph was produced by the studio of Pompeo Pozzi, a former student of Brera who maintained a long-standing relationship with the Academy’s faculty and with artists, primarily from Lombardy but not exclusively. Through this image, Francesco Hayez captures his mental and working process behind a painting conceived during an emotionally difficult period of his life, marked by political and personal disappointments—a phase later redeemed in the following decade by renewed generational fervour and the eventual creation of the Kingdom of Italy.
Title
Francesco Hayez, Meditation on the history of Italy
Subject
Francesco Hayez, sketch for Meditation on the History of Italy, later painted in 1850.
Creator
Pompeo Pozzi
Date
1861-1870
Object Type
Photograph
Technique / Support
Albumen print
Original Function
Documentation / teaching tool
Dimensions
mm 151 x 114
Holding institution
Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera
Unique identifier
ICCD_MIDF_8197142990771