Lot 91: Joseph Léon Righini , c. 1820 - 1884, active in the northern regions of Brazil from 1856 - 1884 Rubber Harvester in the Brazilian Forest oil on canvas, unlined

signed lower right J. Leon Righini oil on canvas, unlined

measurements note 34 1/4 by 25 1/2 in.; 87 by 65 cm.

Until recently, little was known about the life and career of Joseph Léon Righini, the best foreign painter to have portrayed the landscape of the Amazon during the 19υth century. He was most likely born around 1820 in Torino, Italy, and was a student at the Accademia di Belli Arti, where he exhibited in 1844. He arrived in Recife, the capital of the state of Pernambuco in northeast Brazil, in 1856 and was employed as a stage designer for the Italian opera company, Ramonda. He is also recorded in Maranhao and later in Belém, where he died in 1884. Righini is the author of extensive and precise panoramic views of the cities in which he lived. He was also the first important artist trained in Europe to paint the landscape of northern Brazil, and was particularly fascinated by the wild forests of the Amazon, which he portrayed with an eye to both precise observation and dramatic composition, which was derived from his experience as a stage designer. The present composition is a previously unrecorded autograph work, and one of the most ambitious of his rainforest compostions. Righini emphasizes the minute size of the rubber harvester to enchance the overwhelming scale and presence of the immense trees that surround him. This work represents a most important addition to the two-dozen oil paintings now recorded in this prominent artist's Brazilian oeuvre.