Giuseppe Sciuti

Quotations of Giuseppe Sciuti

Good-sized historical subjects by Giuseppe Sciuti that are not highly finished range between 8,000 euros and 15,000 euros. In contrast, works of smaller size but characterized by great technical and descriptive expertise are the most sought after and have estimates around 10,000 euros. Finally, works of large dimensions and also very precise and with details and figures exceed 20,000 euros.

Giuseppe Sciuti is a very prolific author and therefore these estimates are entirely indicative: the variables for the evaluation of one of his paintings are many, so we recommend that you send us a photo of your work to get an updated and accurate quotation.

Biography

Giuseppe Sciuti was born in 1834 in Zafferana Etnea, a small town in the province of Catania. He came from a wealthy family that did not approve of his artistic vocation. He trained in Catania following the teachings of set designer Giuseppe De Stefani, the well-known portrait painter Giuseppe Gandolfo, and Giuseppe Rapisardi, from whom he learned relevant lessons in ornament and perspective.

Arrival in Florence and knowledge of Macchiaiolo verismo

The artist’s first known work is L’eruzione dell’Etna executed in 1854 and an altarpiece with St. Joseph with Child made for the mother church of Zafferana. He executed other altarpieces for churches in Catania, getting noticed by the municipality, which offered him a financial subsidy to perfect his painting technique, traveling to Naples, Rome and Florence. He spent a longer period in the Tuscan capital, and by frequenting the Caffè Michelangelo he came into contact with macchia painting and the verista language. From these Florentine years are the two works La tradita and La vedova, which testify to his adherence to Macchiaioli poetics.

Realism between history painting and genre scenes

The painter returned briefly to Catania and then left again in 1867 for Naples with the aim of attending Domenico Morelli’s school. It was precisely in 1867 that his participation in the Promotrice of Naples is attested with two works Suonatori alla porta d’una camera di ritrovo and Una tentazione, paintings that won the appreciation of princes Umberto and Margherita di Savoia. Also observing the language of the Palizzi brothers, he abandoned the outline, arriving at a painting of iridescent and mellow colors, characterized, however, by a skillful use of chiaroscuro. In 1869 he returned to the Neapolitan Promotrice with Una scena del 1849 in Sicilia and Un fanciullo che torna da scuola awarded. The following year in Parma he presented three oil paintings The Prisoners of the Castel nuovo after the capitulation of 1799, The Mothers of the Fatherland in 1799 in Naples and Domestic Peace. In 1872 he took part in the Genoa Exposition with La carità, and the following year, also in Genoa, he presented L’educazione. The production of this period is characterized by genre scenes or historical content, treated according to the Morellian realist school. Often the themes chosen also trace moralistic assumptions. In these years he also worked with Morelli on the execution of the curtain for the Verdi Theater in Salerno, representing the Expulsion of the Saracens from Salerno, inaugurating his season as a fresco painter and decorator of buildings and churches.

In the 1870s he became an interpreter of a neo-Pompeian strand, which he treated with great philological attention, producing works such as Pompeian and Aspasia exhibited in 1874 at the Tuscan exhibition; Pompeians presented at the Neapolitan Exposition the following year, or A postprandium d’un patrician Roman – story appearing at the Milan Exposition of 1881.

Activity as a fresco painter and allegorical subjects

In 1875 he moved permanently to Rome and obtained several assignments as a fresco painter: between 1878 and 1880 he decorated the council chamber of the Palazzo della Provincia in Sassari with episodes from the city’s history; he then produced a long series of pictorial cycles in various churches in Catania and Acireale; and in 1894 he decorated the curtain of the Teatro Massimo in Palermo.

In his later years he turned his interest to Symbolist and allegorical themes that can be read in the works Con il benessere fioriscono le arti e le scienze, a painting that also gives evidence of an approach to Art Nouveau poetics at the end of the century, and La verità, the latter exhibited at the Promotrice di Genova in 1905. In 1905 the artist also finished the cycle of frescoes at the Calanna Palace in Acireale in which we see compositions with allegorical themes such as The Genius of Instruction, The Remuneration, The Four Seasons, Silence, Sleep and Confidence, with mythological subjects such as Iris and The Bacchae , and with historical content in The Battle of Aquilius. In 1909 he participated in the Rome Exhibition of Amateurs and Connoisseurs with A Tournament and The Truth Discovered by Time. The artist died in Rome in 1911.

Emanuela Di Vivona