Frigidarium – Pompeii Baths (1878-1880 c.)

Signed lower left: “A. Scifoni Roma”

Provenance: Italy, private collection

Bibliography: Current Art Prices. 1907-1908. A register of sales prices during the season, vol. 1, 1908, p. 276.

A painting entitled The Frigidarium-Pompeii was sold at auction in 1880[1] and a work by the same name (Frigidarium) was cited by Angelo De Gubernatis, listing Scifoni’s paintings, in his 1889 Dizionario degli Artisti[2]. Furthermore, a The Frigidarium by the artist, corresponding in size to the present painting, appears at a Christie’s auction in 1907[3], and we can assume that it is the work commented here.

Five public bath buildings have been found in Pompeii. For his re-enactment – citing it precisely – Scifoni used the coldest environment (the Frigidarium) of the male section of the Baths of the Forum in Pompeii (fig. 1), a thermal complex brought to light during the Bourbon excavations of 1823-1824. Originally used as a Laconicum (an environment used for sweat baths with the introduction of hot air), the frigidarium is a circular room with a domed vault and a pool, also circular, covered in marble.

Four large niches separate the walls, originally frescoed with garden scenes on a yellow background, while a stucco groove frame on a red background, featuring a circus chariot race, marks the start of the dome at the top. Scifoni chose to place the scene in the background of one of the niches, whose frescoes, however, could no longer be made out: he therefore seemed to create a pastiche based on the fresco in the garden of the House of Romulus and Remus, excavated near the Forum in 1871- 1872 and perhaps known through the meticulous drawings of Geremia Discanno published, with glittering chromolithographs produced by Victor Steeger, by the German art historian Emil Presuhn in Die Pompejanischen Wanddecorationen (Leipzig, 1877, ill. Reg. VII, Ins. VII, 10; fig. 2).

Having recreated the context, according to the dictates of genre painting, he imagined a scene of everyday family intimacy: supported by his richly adorned mother, a child with a white complexion and a fat stomach (a sign of high social status) appears recalcitrant at the idea of immersing himself in the cold water that he has just tested with his foot. There is no point in trying to distract him by waving a small wooden doll. On the left, another female figure, richly dressed, observes the scene with an indolent expression while she wrings out a cloth.

Scifoni passionately studied Roman archaeology and his frequent visits to Pompeii allowed him to accumulate material first-hand. It was the artist himself who spoke about his visit to the Vesuvian city in the sweltering August of 1871, during which he had the opportunity to see “the corpses of Pompeians surprised by the catastrophe”, the result of the simple and ingenious invention of the archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli (director of excavations from 1860 to 1875), who in 1863 filled the voids left in the ash by the bodies with plaster (figs. 3, 4). This invention has an immense anthropological worth: not only does the city, with its streets, houses, shops and furnishings of all kinds arouse amazement in travellers, its inhabitants – caught in their last moments, twisted, desperate, breathless – also become a living and burning presence once more. Poets and artists draw inspiration from it, the imagination runs wild, thereby becoming a fascinating game of imagining the everyday lives, joys and sorrows of those women, men and children, who appear so similar to modern-day people.

In 1861, Domenico Morelli inaugurated the neo-Pompeian genre in Italy with an ambitious painting set in the Apodyterium of the Stabian Baths (Il Bagno pompeiano), based on similar French re-enactments of literary taste, and from that moment on, at least until the end of the century, neo-Pompeian painting enjoyed undisputed success, thanks to artists such as the French Jean Léon Gérôme and the Anglo-Dutch Lawrence Alma-Tadema.

“The name Alma Tadema spontaneously springs to mind when looking at paintings by Mr Anatolio Scifoni”, wrote Giovanni Camerana when commenting on the 1869 Promotrice in Turin[4], and this association recurs in many comments on the works of the Roman artist, who undoubtedly carefully observed the model of the Anglo-Dutch artist, struck by Pompeii during a trip to Italy in the early sixties. Like him, foreign artists, writers and travellers rarely missed the opportunity to visit the Vesuvian excavations, while – Scifoni said – there were very few Italians[5]. It is therefore not surprising that the buyers of his works – and, in general, those of neo-Pompeian artists – were mostly foreigners, who were also able to perceive the “exotic” aspect of those scenes.

Scifoni was born in Florence on 2 May 1841 “to Roman parents”[6]. In fact, he was the son of the notary, scholar and patriot Felice Scifoni[7], who, following a sentence of exile for his participation in the Risorgimento uprisings, had had to abandon Rome and settle in Florence (1833), and of the bourgeois Idda Botti, a painter, who had been a pupil of Giovanni Salvagni in Rome and in Florence became the painting instructor of Matilde Bonaparte, wife of the Russian prince and patron Anatolio Demidoff. It was in homage to this figure, who would become his godfather, that Scifoni was given his first name[8], just as his subsequent training as an artist was due to the cosmopolitan and culturally stimulating environment frequented by his mother, who died when Scifoni was just three years of age. Moreover, it was Matilde Bonaparte who took care of the fate of the orphaned child[9] and the Macchiaiolo painter Telemaco Signorini would later remember, during his childhood, the carefree running around in the company of Anatolio Scifoni in the Demidoff gardens in the Florentine Villa San Donato. In those initial years, Scifoni would follow the imposed nomadic destiny of his father Felice, forced to move several times both for economic reasons and as a consequence of his political beliefs, which were Mazzinian and republican. Finally, in 1847, following Pius IX’s edict of forgiveness, Felice Scifoni was able to return to Rome, taking Anatolius with him. However, his participation in the Constituent Assembly and his vote in favour of the Republic forced him into exile once again, in France (1849), while Anatolio remained in Rome with his mother’s relatives, the Botti family.

“Industrious, intelligent and cultured”[10], Scifoni followed an academic path which initially, in order to reunite with his father, took him to Turin at the Albertina Academy, becoming friends with Lorenzo Delleani. Later on, to improve his skills, he went to Paris in the company of Federico Pastoris and Carlo Pittara: there, “he was impressed by the works of Gérome and Alma Tadema, and attempted to adopt the style of those masters”[11]. He exhibited his first painting in 1860 and, from that year until 1883, he was repeatedly present at the annual exhibitions of the Turin Fine Arts promoting society, mostly with genre paintings and historical settings.  Paintings from this era include Fede e dubbio-Interno della Chiesa Gressoney St. Jean (1861), in which he portrayed “a devotee and a sceptic”[12], In uno studio (exhibited in Turin in 1863) and La convalescente (exhibited in Turin in 1865).

In 1865, he exhibited at the Six-century anniversary of Dante exhibition in Florence, demonstrating a similarity to the realist schools of landscape, including the Macchiaioli and the Rivara school; his A mezzo novembre nel vercellese was reviewed as follows: “I believe that it is difficult to portray such a simple scene and such stupendous truth as the one admired in this beautiful painting, which eloquently demonstrates the sterility of the countryside, the solitary herd of goats led by their herdsman, so the painter cannot fear being criticised in the slightest”[13].

Made more aware by his father’s involvement in the cause of the Risorgimento, in 1866 he participated in the Third War of Independence, as proven in a letter to Signorini da Lodrone dated 6 August 1866 (Florence, National Central Library, Signorini Correspondence, cit. in P. Dini, Giuseppe Abbati, Allemandi, p. 120). He then probably returned to Rome, where in 1867 he produced Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta al tramonto (Turin, Palazzo Reale, Coll. di Casa Savoia, no. SR 269), and settled there definitively in 1870, after the capture of the papal city. In January of that year, he was commissioned by the Prefect of the Royal House, Prince Doria Pamphili, to produce the large canvas celebrating Vittorio Emanuele II in Campidoglio (295 x 200 cm, ASR 21).

While, on the one hand, he continued his inclination towards painting from real life, as in the Teresiane[14], exhibited at the Accademia Ligustica in 1869, that same year he produced one of his best-known neo-antique paintings, Cleopatra giovinetta consulta una maga: created in Rome that same year and exhibited in Turin at the XXVIII Promotrice (n. 89), it was purchased by the King, from whom it then became part of the collections of the Palazzo Reale in Turin (the work is currently in storage at the Revenue Agency, Directorate Reg. of Piedmont, Turin).  According to his custom, the following year Scifoni made a copy of the same subject, known on the antiques market.

During this era, the artist was an established part of the Roman artistic and associational scene, so that, in addition to being among the founders of the International Artistic Circle, strongly advocated by the enlightened prince Baldassarre Odescalchi, he became part of the Universal Artistic Association, founded in Rome in 1872 with the aim of promoting, from an international perspective, both artists and, in general, the advancement of the “sister arts”.  A considerable knowledge of the ancient world [15] meant that Scifoni himself organised an Egyptian re-enactment in the Cervara carnival in April 1871: on one of the floats, the artist himself impersonated a Pharaoh sitting on a throne, flanked by a consort and the Egyptian deity Apis in the form of a bull. The entire day, with a detailed description of the celebrations, is recorded in the third volume of What I remember (1889) by the English writer Thomas Adolphus Trollope, who took part in it. Scifoni’s re-enactment, reread today in light of Schilizzi’s decision to build an Egyptian mausoleum for himself, almost like a modern-day pharaoh, cannot fail to spark the reader’s imagination.

During the 1870s, Scifoni took part in the international events: at the Universal Exhibition in Vienna in 1873[16] he exhibited La missione della Croce in Roma and, at the Centennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, he presented Preparation for a Feast at Pompeii and Offering to the Lares, being awarded a medal.

The same period also saw the creation of Pausias and Glycera[17] (fig. 5) in which the similarity to the refined style of the Dutch Alma-Tadema is particularly evident, a sign that the artist had now fully embraced the new pictorial genre, which was highly appreciated by the international market and by the famous Parisian dealer Goupil, who purchased some of his works[18]. It is no coincidence that, in an article from March 1880 in “The Parisian”, Scifoni’s Roman studio is remembered as a destination for American travellers, together with those of the most renowned artists of the time, from Scipione Vannutelli and Achille Vertunni, to Pio Joris and Onorato Carlandi[19]. “He spent several months in Pompeii […] Among the silent ruins, among the houses that had remained dismantled for eighteen centuries, he found the inspiration for many of his works, works that earned him the reputation of a very talented specialist in this genre”, wrote Angelo De Gubernatis[20], listing numerous works dedicated to depicting scenes of Pompeian everyday life: Una lezione di danza a Pompei, La fontana di Mercurio a Pompei, Il giorno natalizio del padre a Pompei, and Tepidarium alle Terme di Pompei, and Frigidarium, presented at the Paris Salon in 1877[21]. The buyers of his paintings were almost all foreigners – United States, Germany, France, England, Turkey – with the exception of one of his most successful neo-Pompeian paintings, Il Cottabo, exhibited in 1883, together with I saltimbanchi di Pompei[22] (fig. 6), at the Rome International Exhibition and purchased by the entrepreneur and banker from Livorno Matteo Schilizzi, resident in Naples.

Scifoni’s biographical trajectory is rather short: a knight of the Crown of Italy, he died at the age of forty-three “of an acute illness”[23] in Varedo (Milan) in April 1884[24].

Eugenia Querci

[1] G. Redford, Art Sales: a history of sales of pictures and other works of art, vol. II, Londra 1888, p. 209. The name of the buyer was “Crossman”, the dimensions are unknown.

[2] A. De Gubernatis, Dizionario degli artisti italiani viventi. Pittori, scultori e architetti, Successori Le Monnier, Florence, 1889, p. 461.

[3] Art Prices Current. 1907-1908. A record of Sales Prices during the Season, vol. 1, 1908, p. 276. In the same sales season, Frigidarium by Scifoni, of identical dimensions, was also up for auction.

[4] G. Camerana, Pubbliche Esposizioni di Belle Arti-Società Promotrice in Torino, in “L’arte in Italia. Rivista mensile di Belle Arti”, 1869, p. 96. The article cites Un’offerta agli dei Lari, exhibited at the 1868 Promotrice in Turin, and Cleopatra giovinetta consulta una maga, exhibited at the 1869 one.

[5] Scifoni wrote that in the visitors’ book of the Porta Stabiana hotel where he stayed from 1 August 1871 there were “nomi di gente di ogni paese, vi figurano diversi francesi, moltissimi tedeschi ma…ben pochi italiani!”.

[6] A. De Gubernatis, Dizionario degli Artisti viventi, Luigi e A. S. Gonnelli Editori, Florence, 1892, p. 461.

[7] A written document with autobiographical memories is conserved in Rome at the Museo centrale del Risorgimento, Manuscript 247, Rimembranze.

[8] Demidoff also baptised a brother of the painter Michele Gordigiani, who was also baptised as Anatolio (aka Cinci).

[9] Notizie artistiche, in “Il Lucifero”, no. 29, 21 August 1844, p. 236.

[10] A. Stella, Pittura e scultura in Piemonte. 1842-1891. Catalogo Cronografico Illustrato della Esposizione Retrospettiva del 1892, 1893, p. 341.

[11] A. Stella, Pittura e scultura in Piemonte. 1842-1891. Catalogo Cronografico Illustrato della Esposizione Retrospettiva del 1892, 1893, p. 341.

[12] Demo, Esposizioni italiane di Belle Arti, in “Il Mondo Illustrato”, a. IV, no. 25, 22 June 1861, p. 394.

[13] U. Mengozzi, Rassegna di Belle Arti, in “Rivista italica”, vol. 1, 1865, p. 654.

[14] G. Isola, L’Esposizione di Belle Arti nell’Accademia Ligustica, appendix to nos. 280 e 283 of “Corriere Mercantile”, pubblicato in Risposta ad un articolo del prof. Cav. Giuseppe Isola, Genoa, Tipografia della Gioventù, 1870, p. 62. Reads: “Anatolio Scifoni da Roma dipinge fermamente, è giustissimo nei rapporti e di una forte intonazione nel quadro delle Teresiane, fatto per certo sul vero”.

[15] Amateurally, he also wrote about archaeology, as in the first issue of the monthly magazine called “L’Arte in Italia”, from 1869: A.S., Archeologia, Scavi recenti in Roma, Gli orti di Asinio Pollione, in “L’arte in Italia”, Turin-Naples, Unione Tipografico-Editrice, no. 1, 1869, pp. 2-4.

[16] 1873. Esposizione Universale di Vienna. Catalogo delle Belle Arti Italiane, Vienna, Casa Editrice Buonconto e Simonetti 1873, no. 3134.

[17] Reproduced in J. Eugene Reed, The Gallery of Contemporary Art: an illustrated review on the recent art productions of all nations, Philadelphia, Gebbie&Co. Publishers, 1885, p. 66.

[18] See Goupil Stock Books, 8 paintings were recorded (some with the same title) from 1873 to 1881.

[19] Roman Art News, in “The Parisian”, 4 March 1880.

[20] A. De Gubernatis, Dizionario degli Artisti viventi, Luigi e A. S. Gonnelli Editori, Florence, 1892, p. 461, p. 461.

[21] In that year’s catalogue, he was mentioned as being a pupil of Picot and Gastaldi and his address in Paris was c/o Goupil, 9, rue Chaptal.

[22] An article in “The Manhattan” dated 1884 cites some of the more renowned paintings, one depicting Roman women playing the astragali game, another a painter portraying a Pompeian woman in his studio, yet another acrobats in a street in Pompeii: “the fidelity of the details is not less remarkable than the rare artistic feeling displayed in these compositions, and those who saw the original paintings were loud in praise of their agreeable color and fine atmosphere”. V. “The Manhattan Illustrated monthly magazine”, vol. IV, no. 1, New York, July 1884, p. 124.

[23] A. Stella, Pittura e scultura in Piemonte. 1842-1891. Catalogo Cronografico Illustrato della Esposizione Retrospettiva del 1892, 1893, p. 341.

[24] Based on what was reported in Ipsilonne, La Festa degli artisti a Cervara, in “L’Illustrazione italiana”, a. XI, no. 18, 4 May 1884, the date of death, which came to pass almost two days after the party, celebrated on the 21st, probably occurred on 23 April in Varedo (Milan).