The painting published here—previously known only through a black-and-white photograph held in the Macchiaioli Archive—is signed by Carlo Ademollo. He was a painter celebrated primarily for his patriotic subjects and, within artistic circles, also somewhat renowned for the fact that, throughout his life, he never ceased wearing red wool wrist warmers—in both winter and summer. The 1855 date points directly to his studies from life conducted in the Sienese countryside near Staggia, where he would go to paint alongside a group of young colleagues. Ademollo himself recalls that experience in his memoirs.

Excerpt from the Expertise by doc. Elena Marconi.