Pietro Scoppetta (1863–1920) - Ritratto de dame

PIETRO SCOPPETTA
(Amalfi, SA 1863 – Naples, 1920)
Portrait of ladies
Pastel on cardboard, 42 x 34 cm
Signed 'P. SCOPETTA' in the upper right
Frame size, about 59 x 60 x 4 cm.

NOTE: Intermidiaart catalog publication. Signed in the upper right. Certificate of Legitimate Provenance. Work with wooden frame (defects):

This fine painting, known under the title Portrait of ladies, centers on the female figure of the early 20th century and was created by the famous Neapolitan painter Pietro Scoppetta (Amalfi, 1863 – Naples, 1920).
Executed with pastel on paper, the work portrays a woman in a thoughtful pose on a sofa. It is a significant example of Scoppetta’s style, an artist of Amalfi origin active in Naples, known for his female figures captured in moments of spontaneous intimacy.
The pose of the figure, with the head resting on the hand and the body reclining on a sofa, is a recurring theme in his female portraits, as can be seen in the painting Portrait of a Lady on the Sofa.
Settling between two centuries, Scoppetta’s figure was animated by tendencies that were as personal as artistic, substantially divergent from one another. The artist was initially heir to poetic tendencies oriented toward a rigorous representation of the truth, which reached him filtered through the teachings of Gaetano Capone and later Giacomo Di Chirico, while he still frequented the settings of his native Amalfi and its coast.
At the end of his military service, it was the great Neapolitan painting school, with its prestigious representatives — including Edoardo Dalbono — that oriented some of his thematic and stylistic choices.
In Naples, however, a new climate was felt, eager to break free from the heavy heritage of the past: the first Art Nouveau tendencies were beginning to spread, with renewed attention to applied arts and graphics. Scoppetta, a passionate draughtsman, was inevitably influenced by this. His brushwork thus became faster and more synthetic, while the palette narrowed to an essential chromatic range.
A natural consequence of what could be defined as a sort of Neapolitan Belle Époque was the journey to the driving center of these trends, namely Paris. Following the example of numerous Italian artists — including Carlo Brancaccio, Ulisse Caputo, Lionello Balestrieri, Raffaele Ragione and Vincenzo La Bella — Scoppetta moved to the French capital. From there he continued his travels across Europe, always in search of elegant subjects to swiftly fix in his notebook.
A privileged protagonist of Scoppetta’s drawings and canvases is the female figure, represented both in the spontaneity of an intimate and solitary dimension and in the more refined mises, set in refined metropolitan contexts. The work under consideration manages to reconcile these two tensions, returning a moment of private life of an elegant lady of the city bourgeoisie.
The described work comes in good condition, despite aging signs visible in the photos, and bears the artist’s signature in the upper right.
The painting, of good painting hand, is enhanced by a gilded and black lacquered frame (frame size, 59 x 60 x 4 cm, defects). "The frame shown in the photos above has been added to the artwork by the seller or by a third party. The frame is provided to you at no additional cost so that it is ready to display as soon as it arrives. The frame is included as a courtesy and is not considered an integral part of the artwork. Therefore, any potential damage to the frame that does not affect the artwork itself will not be accepted as a valid reason to open a claim or request order cancellation."

PROVENANCE: Private Collection

PUBLICATION:
- Unpublished;
- I MITI E IL TERRITORIO nella Sicilia dalle mille culture. INEDITA QUADRERIA general catalog of the paintings from the cycle “I Miti e il territorio,” Editor Lab_04, Marsala, 2026 (Pdf).

In the case of sale outside the Italian territory, the buyer must wait for the processing times of export procedures.