Antonio BASOLI

This large sheet is a very fine example of Antonio Basoli’s designs for interior spaces. A number of similar projects for wall and ceiling decorations are contained in several albums of finished watercolours by Basoli, compiled by the artist himself, that are today in the collection of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna. One of these albums, inventoried as ‘Libro 105’, contains various decorative schemes, datable between 1797 and 1809, for the interiors of such Bolognese palazzi as the Casa Monti, the Casa Muratori, the Palazzo Aldini, the Palazzo Levi and the Palazzo Albergati, while another volume, ‘Libro 82’, includes watercolours executed between 1806 and 1808 for the interiors of, among others, the Casa Torri, the Casa Belvederi and the Casa Michelini, all in Bologna. Basoli also included several similar designs for walls and compartmented ceilings in his Compartimenti di camere, published in Bologna in 1827. 

The present sheet has been dated to c.1820. Among several comparable works by Antonio Basoli is a large design for a coffered ceiling and walls in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and a watercolour of a stage design of an interior, in the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York.