Filippo Palizzi

Filippo Palizzi (1818–1899), an Italian painter born in Vasto and died in Naples, brings landscape together with close observation of animals in their natural environment. His interest in studying from nature is evident from his early years of training and remains central to an approach that, according to Mariantonietta Picone Petrusa, from the 1860s observes animals in their environment and recognizes their own distinct characteristics rather than treating them as figures of human vices. Having settled in Naples in 1836, he received a four-year stipend the following year and enrolled at the Real Istituto di belle arti, where Domenico Morelli was his fellow student. After a few months he left the institution to join Giuseppe Bonolis’s free school, while retaining the right to enter the institute’s competitions. He won two, both devoted to the depiction of animals from nature; according to his autobiography, these exercises led him to “study truth in the countryside”. The biennial exhibitions of the Real Museo borbonico provided an early venue for his work: his Studies of Animals were shown there in 1839, awarded a medal and acquired by the Duchess of Berry. In 1841 he exhibited two paintings of shepherds there, followed by The Royal Estate of Carditello, purchased by Ferdinand II in 1851.

His travels also informed his work. At the end of 1841, he spent four months in Basilicata to study popular costumes. Setting out for Moldavia in the autumn of 1842 in the company of a prince, he travelled via Valletta, Smyrna and Constantinople, then returned to Italy in 1844. In 1853 he produced drawings engraved by Francesco Pisante for Usi e costumi di Napoli e contorni, a book by Francesco De Bourcard. During a stay in Paris in 1855, particularly on the occasion of the Exposition Universelle, Palizzi met landscape painters of the Barbizon school and learned the cliché-verre technique. Picone Petrusa places the development of his research into light after this journey, evident in The Washerwomen of the Sarno (1856); after 1864, she notes his interest in backlighting and reflected light. In Naples, his studio on Via Cupa, in the Chiaia district, became a meeting place and forum for discussion among painters in the 1850s, including Morelli, Bernardo Celentano, Michele Cammarano and Francesco Saverio Altamura. At the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1867, he presented six paintings, including The Animals Leaving the Ark, commissioned in 1861 by Victor Emmanuel II and awarded a gold medal. In 1873, as a member of the jury of the Vienna World’s Fair, he presented Love in the Desert outside the competition.

He joined the teaching staff of the Naples institute of fine arts in 1868, became its president shortly after 1878, resigned in 1881, and was appointed to the post again by decree on 1 March 1891. The gifts he made in the last years of his life bear witness to the transfer of his work to public institutions. In 1892 he presented the Ministry of Public Education with around three hundred studies intended for the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, which also holds The Washerwomen of the Sarno. He also donated groups of works to the Academy of Fine Arts of Naples in 1896 and 1898, and to the municipality of Vasto in 1898.

Works recorded at auction

Schuler · Lot 3065

Feeding the Animals in the Stable

Oil on wood

Original catalogue wording

Füttern der Tiere im Stall
Öl auf Holz

Catalogue period : 2026-06-29

Published result : 2000 CHF

Fees not specified in the available data

Estimate : CHF 2000–3000

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Piguet

Cheval,

Oil on canvas

Original catalogue wording

Cheval,
huile sur toile

Catalogue period : 2021-03-17

Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed

Estimate : CHF 7000–9000

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