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Lot description
(Rome 1836–1910 Paris) The Masterpiece Revealed, signed Cortazzo, oil on panel, 65 x 90 cm, framed Provenance: Fresno Metropolitan Museum of Art and Science, California; Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 3 June 2010, lot 181; Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 1 February 2018, lot 732; there acquired by its current owner. Oreste Cortazzo initially studied with his father Michele (1808-1865) but after meeting Léon Bonnat in Rome in 1858, he decided to move to Paris to continue his training in his atelier. There he became a painter of genre scenes specializing in highly detailed figures which were popular among the bourgeoisie. He exhibited regularly at the Salon between 1874 and 1885 and at the Exposition Universelle in 1879 and 1889. The present painting shows a group of five women in a monumental gallery with a large marble floor. They are elegantly dressed in an eighteenth-century style. They are surrounded by furniture, seventeenth-century tapestries, old Master paintings, a baroque marble table and decorative objects. The artist’s interest for the Orient in vogue at the end of the 19th century can be seen in a bronze statue and Chinese porcelains. This painting exemplifies Cortazzo’s masterful skill at depicting interior architecture, decoration, and figures. Cortazzo also worked as a print maker and he illustrated books by Balzac and Guy de Maupassant. His teacher Léon Bonnat acquired a couple of his paintings which are currently held at the Musée Bonnat-Helleu in Bayonne.