Michele Gordigiani

Gordigiani, after an initial matrix formation purist in Florence in the wake of Luigi Mussini and John Dupré, turned away from the teachings academics to attend since their debut Macchiaoli of the group and their meetings held at the famous café Michelangelo. Despite such a liking to the genre of portraiture did not allow real involvement with the theories of the stain – dangerously acrobatic would mediate the need for synthetic realism with the quality requirements of the customer – and Gordigiani continued his career as the one success after another .

In 1867 he won the Competition Ricasoli getting the commission of a portrait of Cesare Balbo, the first National Exhibition of Florence in 1861 sent the portrait of Vittorio Emanuele II (Turin, Museo del Risorgimento) and in the same year gave the Portrait of Camillo Benso di Cavour (Turin, Museo del Risorgimento), then moved to Paris, where he exhibited at the Salons also, and in 1867 lived in London where he painted the portrait of Queen Victoria and Prince consort Albert and exhibited at the Royal Society of Arts. “Consecrated now painter of kings, queens and princesses of the most important courts of Europe” (p.47 Borsellino) Michele Gordigiani can be rightly regarded as the most well-known portrait painter, and the highest paid, in Italy in the late nineteenth century.