The arms dealer

Description of the artwork

While many painters discovered the Orient during their travels and subsequently turned to Orientalist painting, this was not the case for Giulio Rosati, who nevertheless became one of the most prolific Italian artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He owed his extensive knowledge of Muslim culture to his insatiable curiosity, which led him to collect photographs, prints and Oriental objects in his Roman studio. Giulio Rosati excelled at rendering fabrics, weapons and objects, but it was watercolour that he most often used, a medium that allowed him to respond to the many commissions he received. He used bright colours and treated the light of the Orient with a disturbing truthfulness. Through his almost photographic compositions, he managed to capture local life and invited the viewer to share the moment he had chosen to paint. When depicting arms dealers, he managed to draw our attention to the rifles or pistols that the characters were all looking at intently. Small hand movements, a half-open mouth, and we are right in the middle of the debate between the merchant and his customer. These street merchants, captured in the moment, give his compositions a freshness that was very popular with collectors.

Origin

Mathaf Gallery Ltd., London
Private collection, London