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| Head of an Italian Boy Adriano Bonifazi, 1875 The Victoria & Albert Museum |
Adriano Bonifazi (1858-1914) was an Italian painter who worked in Capri and Rome and is best remembered for his portraits of young boys and girls, often in rustic dress. Usually these were finished as "pendants," in this case, meaning paired paintings with one depicting a young girl and, the other, a young boy. Bonifazi painted in the Romantic vein with his subjects often depicted offering flowers to their beloved or looking whistfully out of the picture space.
Bonifazi's paintings, as the curators of the V&A tell us, speak of beautiful children and young adults attempting to capture an idea of innocence or amorous emotion more so than being depictions particular individuals.
In this work, Bonifazi represents one of his typical subjects--a bust length 'portrait' of a young boy, turned towards the right, with dark curly hair and wearing a hat decorated with ribbons and flowers, a white shirt, brown tunic and animal skin. He sports a leather strap across his right shoulder amd is posed against a pale blue ground. It was created in Rome in 1875 as evidenced by the signature: "A. Bonifazi Roma 75."
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