Portrait Of Dominican Father signed and dated by the Italian artist Luigi Mussini 1860. The fathar is portraid frontally, half-bust, with dark green background. Dressed in buttoned surplice and a white cassock rendered with masterful brushwork with iridescent, silky effect. This is a middle-aged, almost balding father, his face turned slightly to the right, his gaze is intense, stern or otherwise pensive as denounced by his frowning eyebrows and tight lips. The simplicity in the setting and the icastic rendering bring the portrait of the religious man back into the purist Tuscan painting culture of the mid-19th century.

The oil on canvas painting is in good conservation condition, comes from a private collection in Milan, set within a beautiful wooden frame carved with shells, scrolls and gilded mecca finish.

On the back of the canvas there is an inscription with the author’s signature and date: L. Mussini a vitarciano??? 8bre 1860.

Luigi Mussini (Berlin 1813 – Siena 1888) studied at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence, where he was a disciple of Pietro Benvenuti and Giuseppe Bezzuoli.

In 1840 he won a boarding school in Rome, where he stayed four years studying painting. He was inspired by the masters of the 15th century and in 1844 opened a school in Florence: his disciples were Silvestro Lega and Michele Gordigiani.

In 1848 he left his brushes to participate as a volunteer in the First War of Independence. Disillusioned by the unhappy outcome he went to Paris where he attended Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Hyppolite Flandrin, William Haussoullier and other artists.

In 1851 he moved to Siena, where he became director of the Academy of Fine Arts, a position he held for 37 years until his death. At the Sienese academy he was a teacher of, among others, Angelo Visconti, Amos Cassioli, Cesare Maccari, Giuseppe Catani Chiti, Pietro Aldi and Alessandro Franchi, and Antonio Ridolfi. He married Luigia Piaggio, who died in childbirth, giving birth to his only daughter, Luisa, who also became a painter.