Giovanni Battista Lusieri (1755–1821) was an Italian landscape painter from

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adm ...

. He was

court painter A court painter was an artist who painted for the members of a royal or princely family, sometimes on a fixed salary and on an exclusive basis where the artist was not supposed to undertake other work. Painters were the most common, but the cour ...

Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies Ferdinand I (12 January 1751 – 4 January 1825) was the King of the Two Sicilies from 1816, after his restoration following victory in the Napoleonic Wars. Before that he had been, since 1759, Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples and Ferdinand I ...

before working for

Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin and 11th Earl of Kincardine (; 20 July 176614 November 1841) was a British nobleman, soldier, politician and diplomat, known primarily for the controversial procurement of marble sculptures (known as the Elgin M ...

and becoming involved in the removal and shipping of the

Elgin Marbles The Elgin Marbles (), also known as the Parthenon Marbles ( el, Γλυπτά του Παρθενώνα, lit. "sculptures of the Parthenon"), are a collection of Classical Greece, Classical Greek marble sculptures made under the supervision of th ...

to England.

Biography

Giovanni Battista Lusieri - Eruption on Vesuvius by night - 1793

According to the

Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center i ...

(RKD), Lusieri travelled in Naples, Greece, and Turkey. He was employed by

Lord Elgin Earl of Elgin is a title in the Peerage of Scotland, created in 1633 for Thomas Bruce, 3rd Lord Kinloss. He was later created Baron Bruce, of Whorlton in the County of York, in the Peerage of England on 30 July 1641. The Earl of Elgin is the h ...

, to make drawings of the

Acropolis An acropolis was the settlement of an upper part of an ancient Greek city, especially a citadel, and frequently a hill with precipitous sides, mainly chosen for purposes of defense. The term is typically used to refer to the Acropolis of Athens, ...

.Giovanni Battista Lusieri
in the RKD He is known today for removing and shipping the

to London. Lusieri believed that he might have been more famous as an artist had he not spent so much time working for Lord Elgin and his

antiquity Antiquity or Antiquities may refer to: Historical objects or periods Artifacts *Antiquities, objects or artifacts surviving from ancient cultures Eras Any period before the European Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries) but still within the histo ...

collection. He had originally been known for the accurate landscapes and studies of buildings in Italy and Sicily that he often sold to young gentlemen on their

Grand Tour The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tut ...

, especially after he moved to

in 1782 and concentrated on views of

Mount Vesuvius Mount Vesuvius ( ; it, Vesuvio ; nap, 'O Vesuvio , also or ; la, Vesuvius , also , or ) is a somma-stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of ...

. These paintings sold well because the volcano was then quite active.

Lord Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...

regarded him as an important Italian artist, although he may have been biased as he was also the good friend of Lusieri's brother-in-law,

Nicolo Giraud Nicolo or Nicolas Giraud ( – after 1815) was a friend of English Romantic poet Lord Byron. The two met in 1809 while Byron was staying in Athens. Giraud, who at that time of their relationship was a fourteen-year-old majordomo and then stu ...

. Lusieri painted his landscapes in accurate detail, and resisted the fashion for imaginative constructions imitating

Claude Lorrain Claude Lorrain (; born Claude Gellée , called ''le Lorrain'' in French; traditionally just Claude in English; c. 1600 – 23 November 1682) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher of the Baroque era. He spent most of his life in It ...

, arguing that paintings should be taken from real life. From 1799 he spent his time working for Lord Elgin in Greece, and less time painting.

Elgin Marbles

Lusieri was employed by Lord and Lady Elgin even though he was not able to speak English. The contract was drawn up between them in French, and Lusieri was to be paid £200 per year. Lusieri had been the Court Painter to the

King of Naples The following is a list of rulers of the Kingdom of Naples, from its first separation from the Kingdom of Sicily to its merger with the same into the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Kingdom of Naples (1282–1501) House of Anjou In 1382, the Kin ...

and Elgin's secretary, William Hamilton, had written to the King to ask permission to employ his painter. Lusieri was originally employed to create sketches for Elgin of Greek antiquities. Lusieri was empowered to also employ moulders who were to create casts of Greek sculptures. Elgin however found that marble sculptures were missing and that they had allegedly been destroyed. It was Lusieri who persuaded the reluctant Elgin to remove the sculptures in order to protect them from local Turkish opportunists, who were breaking off bits to sell to tourists. In 1801 Elgin had Lusieri supervise the removal of the sculptures at a cost of £70,000.Elgin Marbles
in

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction John Limbird (1796?-1883) was an English stationer, bookseller and publisher, characterised by an obituarist as "the father of our periodical writing". John Limbird was christened on 1 May 1796 in the parish of St. Nicholas, Glatton, Huntingdons ...

, Volume 22, by Reuben Percy & John Timbs, 1833, pg 137, on

Google books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

Legacy

Lusieri's body of work was seriously reduced when many of his paintings were lost in a shipwreck in 1828. A considerable number of his extant paintings are in the possession of the Elgin family. These paintings and others were in Lusieri's very first exhibition, at the

Scottish National Gallery The Scottish National Gallery (formerly the National Gallery of Scotland) is the national art gallery of Scotland. It is located on The Mound in central Edinburgh, close to Princes Street. The building was designed in a neoclassical style by W ...

in 2012.

References

External links

*
Giovanni Battista Lusieri
on

Artnet Artnet.com is an art market website. It is operated by Artnet Worldwide Corporation, which has headquarters in New York City, in the United States, and is owned by Artnet AG, a German publicly traded company based in Berlin that is listed on ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lusieri, Giovanni Battista 1755 births 1821 deaths 18th-century Italian painters 17th-century Italian painters Italian male painters Italian landscape painters Painters from Rome Court painters 18th-century Italian male artists Elgin Marbles