Page 101 - Orient Collection

44. The Arms Dealer

Artist: Julio ROSATTI, Italian, (1853 - 1917)
Execution date (approximate): 1905
Téchnique: Watercolor on Cardboard, (signed lower right)
Measures: 43 x 60 cm.
Description: Rosatti almost always depicts a contrast of strong colors, red for the arm
dealer, and blue for the Noble Gentleman who is buying the sword. A Noble Man examining
a Sward and another one a rifle by an ambulant arm dealer.

Biography
Julio Rosatti was born in Rome in 1858. He was an academic painter from the School of
Rome. He formed himself in the Academy of San Luca, where he was mentored by artists
such as Dario Querci, Francesco Podesti and the Spanish painter Luis Alvarez Catalá.
He painted some pieces on oil, but his main attributes are given to his use of aquarelles,
making him one of the most important Italian aquarellists of his time. He was also one of
the most prolific Orientalist painters of the epoch of transition from the 19th to the 20th
century. From the beginning of his career, he was inclined towards the Orientalist theme,
which eventually became his favourite. His most dominant scenes included places and
persons from the Maghreb countries, all of them full of light and with many colours. There
are no official sources of his travels to the Maghreb region, hence the deduction that he
used photographs and other objects pertaining to the region, that could be found in Rome
at the time, as an influence for his paintings.
His most acknowledged and successful work was ‘The Selection of the Favourite’, theme
of which he produced two versions. His artwork is present in museums and in public and
private collections all over the world.
He had a son, Alberto Rosatti, who was also an acclaimed painter. Julio died in Rome in 1917.

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