(Parma 1883–1976 Rome)
Pleasant Boat Journey, signed Amadeo Bocchi Roma, oil on canvas, 173 x 285 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private Collection, Italy, for two generations.

A certificate issued by Dr. Andrea Baboni, 5 June 2024, available upon request.

Amedeo Bocchi was born in Parma in 1883, where he attended the Academy of Fine Arts under the direction of Cecrope Barilli (Parma 1839-1911). Barilli introduced him to the Impressionist style, and it was at his urging that Bocchi enrolled in the Scuola Libera del Nudo at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome in 1901, where he devoted himself mainly to social realism and portraits. Bocchi married Rita Boraschi, his fellow student in Parma in 1906. Bianca, the artist's first and only daughter, was born in 1908. In 1910 Bocchi worked at the Basilica of St Anthony in Padua in order to learn fresco technique from the painter Achille Casanova. He took part in the Venice Biennale in the same year, exhibiting two works. There, he was able to view Gustav Klimt's large solo exhibition, which was to have a great influence on his production over the following years. In 1915 he permanently moved to one of the house-studios in the Villa Strohl-Fern Park in Rome, which were made available to artists by the Alsatian patron Alfred Strohl. Bocchi’s production reached its artistic peak in his portraits. His preferred subjects were the women in his family, such as this painting that depicts his first wife with their little daughter Bianca. The period of execution along with the iconography, dates the work to around 1908, before his wife's death in 1909. This is a work of Bocchi’s early Roman period, when the artist's painting was inspired by family affection, in a restricted, intimate world, with a taste for en plein air painting. Bocchi's feminine universe is enriched by the elegance of the clothes and hairstyles.