Francesco Beda, (1840 Triest - 1900 Triest)
PAINTING IN THE STUDIO WITH nude model (1882)
Oil on canvas
Beda follows the genre painting of the 18th Century, with a detailed interior, which looks more like a salon than a painting studio, lavishly furnished with tapestries, silk hangings, and elegant furnishings. Left, on a gilded chair sits the painter dressed in bright silk with white powdered hair, in the right on a round pedestal, the nude model, with a slim, youthful figure. The painter, who brilliantly mastered the materials and the naturalistic reproduction of objects, with highlights in pastel shades, brings to life once again the idea of the rococo taste in the 19th Century.
Wrest Park, Bedfordshire
Wrest Park is a country estate located near Silsoe, Bedfordshire, England. It comprises Wrest Park, a country house, and Wrest Park Gardens, surrounding the mansion.
Palazzo Valguarnera-Gangi, Palermo, Sicily. The house was constructed in several phases during the 18th century and completed circa 1780.
Painted panels in the dome by Giuseppe Velasco.
In 1963 the palazzo, and most memorably its ballroom, were the setting for Luchino Visconti’s film’ Il Gattopardo (The Leopard).
The palace is designed in the Baroque style, although its ornamentation is of a more severe form than that which is generally accepted as Sicilian Baroque. In a way the architecture could be said to be more Renaissance than Baroque.
The creation of the house took so long that the Baroque style passed from fashion in favour of the neoclassical style.
