Angelo Toselli (c. 1765, in

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

– 1827?), Italian artist, architect,

scenographer A scenographer or scenic designer, also production designer, is a person who develops the appearance of a stage design, a TV or movie set, a gaming environment, a trade fair exhibition design or a museum experience exhibition design. The term ori ...

, and vedutista. In 1816, presumably in Rome, he was teaching the art of perspective to

Orest Kiprensky Orest Adamovich Kiprensky (; – ) was a leading Russian portraitist in the Age of Romanticism. His most familiar work is probably his portrait of Alexander Pushkin (1827), which prompted the poet to remark that "the mirror flatters me." Bi ...

who just arrived into Italy at the time. Kiprensky in his letters to Russia asked to take care of his mentor as ''he is a good human being''. While in Rome, Toselli created a stage designs for ''

The Barber of Seville ''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( ) is an ''opera buffa'' (comic opera) in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's French comedy ' ...

'' by

Gioachino Rossini Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer of the late Classical period (music), Classical and early Romantic music, Romantic eras. He gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote man ...

premiered under the title ''Almaviva, o sia L'inutile precauzione'' at the

Teatro Argentina The Teatro Argentina (directly translating to "Theatre Argentina") is an opera house and theatre located in Largo di Torre Argentina, a square in Rome, Italy. One of the oldest theatres in Rome, it was constructed in 1731 and inaugurated on 31 ...

20 February 1816. In 1816, Toselli was invited by the administration of the

Imperial Theatres Imperial Theatres of Russian Empire () was a theatrical organization financed by the Imperial exchequer and managed by a single directorate headed with a director; was pertain to the Ministry of the Imperial Court from 1742. The system operated i ...

to come to

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

. He arrived to Russian capital in 1816 or 1817. Worked mostly at the

Bolshoi Theatre The Bolshoi Theatre ( rus, Большо́й теа́тр, r=Bol'shoy teatr, p=bɐlʲˈʂoj tʲɪˈat(ə)r, t=Grand Theater) is a historic opera house in Moscow, Russia, originally designed by architect Joseph Bové. Before the October Revolutio ...

, creating (alongside with artists Canoppi and Kondratiev) decorations for the ballet productions by

Charles Didelot Charles-Louis Didelot (28 March 1767, Stockholm7 November 1837, Kiev) was a French dancer, the creator of the ballet shoes and a choreographer. The son of Charles Didelot, the dance-master of the King of Sweden, he studied dance with his father ...

, including ''A Hunting Adventure'' (1818), ''Laura and Henry or The Troubadour'' (1819, new scenery for the last act), '' Ken-si and Tao or Beauty and the Beast'' (1819). In 1817–1820, he created his most famous work, '' Panorama of Saint Petersburg'' as seen from

Kunstkamera The Kunstkamera (, derived from German ''Kunstkammer'' lit. "art chamber") formally organized as the Russian Academy of Science's Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (, ''Muzey antropologii i etnografii imeni Petra Velikogo R ...

tower (

watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting metho ...

gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouach ...

, 0,51 х 6,56 m., collection of the

Hermitage Museum The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and holds the large ...

). Intended to be shown as a single unit, later it was cut into six separate sheets. In 1991, ''Khudozhnik RSFSR'' published an album with reproductions of this work. His another

panoramic painting Panoramic paintings are massive artworks that reveal a wide, Panorama, all-encompassing view of a particular subject, often a landscape, military battle, or historical event. They became especially popular in the 19th century in Europe and the Un ...

''Scenography of Jerusalem and the surrounding holy places'' was demonstrated in an enfilade of

Lobanov-Rostovsky Palace Lobanov-Rostovsky Residence or the Lobanov-Rostovsky Palace is a building at 12 Admiralteysky Avenue in Saint Petersburg, Russia, constructed in 1817-1820 for Prince Alexander Yakovlevich Lobanov-Rostovsky. Today, the building houses a luxury ho ...

, new-built commercial residence on

Saint Isaac's Square Saint Isaac's Square or Isaakiyevskaya Ploshchad (), known as Vorovsky Square () between 1923 and 1944, in Saint Petersburg, Russia is a major city square sprawling between the Mariinsky Palace and Saint Isaac's Cathedral, which separates it fr ...

with an entrance fee of 5 roubles.

Pavel Svinyin Pavel Petrovich Svinyin or Svinin (Russian language, Russian: Па́вел Петро́вич Свиньи́н; 19 June 1787 – 21 April 1839) was a prolific Russian writer, painter, and editor known as a "Russian Baron Munchausen, Munchausen" f ...

witnessed that ″This spectacle is very much like a theatrical stage, but incomparably more lively″. To achieve that Toselly used

staffage In painting, staffage () are the human and animal figures depicted in a scene, especially a landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often c ...

and some other tricks : thus, the image of the

Pool of Siloam The term Pool of Siloam (, ) refers to several rock-cut pools located southeast of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The pools were fed by the waters of the Gihon Spring, carried there by the Siloam tunnel. The Lower Pool or "Old Pool" ...

was accompanied by sounds of water. Drawings by Angelo Toselli along with drawings by Pietro Gonzaga were used for decoration the concrete walls of the private

Museum for Architectural Drawing The Museum for Architectural Drawing () is a private museum in Berlin, Germany run by the Tchoban Foundation. It was opened in June 2013. Three to four exhibitions are shown each year, made up of drawings from the Tchoban Foundation’s collectio ...

in Berlin (arch.

Sergei Tchoban Sergei Tchoban (German: Sergej Tschoban; born 9 October 1962) is a German Architect and artist working in various cities in Europe. He is managing director of the architectural firm TCHOBAN VOSS Architekten and founder of the Tchoban Foundation, w ...

and Sergey Kuznetsov, 2013).Museum // Architectural Drawing in Form & Function
BerlinArtLink

References

Links

Drawings by Angelo Toselli
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Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum at the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile. It is one of 19 Smithsonian Institution museums and one of three Smithsonian facil ...

18th-century Italian painters 19th-century Italian painters Italian scenic designers Artists from Bologna Architects from Bologna Painters from Saint Petersburg Bolshoi Theatre, Saint Petersburg people Ballet designers Italian draughtsmen Panoramic art 1760s births 1820s deaths {{Italy-painter-stub