Giulio Aristide Sartorio (1860-1932)

Giulio Aristide Sartorio (1860-1932), Italian painter.

Giulio Aristide Sartorio, La Gorgone e gli eroi, 1897

Gaudenzio Marconi (1841-1885)

Gaudenzio Marconi (1841-1885), Italian photographer. His photographs were intended to be used by art students. From the start photography’s status as an art form was a subject of debate and disagreement but there were major artists who used such photographic studies as supplements to the use of live models. Whether these photographic studies qualify as art works is perhaps also debatable but clearly they were very much in the style of fashionable painting of the era.

Are they art or erotica? It’s fair to say that they were intended as art, and function as well in that capacity as the paintings of the average second-tier painter. There is of course something about photography that makes nudity seem more graphic. Partly it’s because photographs showed things that painters tended to be coy about showing, such as female pubic hair. Which made nude photographs more shocking, especially to those who were uncomfortable with the idea that women had genitals. So photography did have a tendency to make nudity seem somehow less respectable.

And when you look at a painting of a nude you can perhaps convince yourself that you’re looking at an allegorical figure or the goddess Venus. Photographs make it a bit more obvious that one is looking at an actual nude woman. Naked goddesses are one thing, but a photograph of an actual naked woman is something else.

Photography forced people to ask themselves whether they really thought that the naked female body was obscene. For some people the answer was yes.

Gaudenzio Marconi, Female nude with pictorial backdrop 1870-1879

Gaudenzio Marconi, Nude Study

Gaudenzio Marconi, Nudo accademico femminile con violino

Gaudenzio Marconi, Nudo femminile, circa 1870

Gaudenzio Marconi, Nudes and cherubs (putti)

Gaudenzio Marconi, Nude Study

Giacomo Mantegazza (1853-1920)

Giacomo Mantegazza (1853-1920), Italian painter.

Giacomo Mantegazza, Una serata di intrattenimento

Giacomo Mantegazza, The Secret

Giacomo Mantegazza, Frighten

Francesco Paolo Michetti (1851-1929)

Francesco Paolo Michetti (1851-1929), Italian painter.

Francesco Paolo Michetti, Odalisca

Francesco Paolo Michetti, Ritratto di donna

Francesco Paolo Michetti, Shepherdess, c. 1900

Cesare Mussini (1804-1897)

Cesare Mussini (1804-1897), German-Italian artist.

Cesare Mussini, Odalisque, 1860

Giacomo Grosso (1860-1938)

Giacomo Grosso (1860-1938), Italian painter.

Giacomo Grosso, Nude

Giacomo Grosso, Smile

Giacomo Grosso, La Femme, 1899

Giacomo Grosso, Nude

Giacomo Grosso, Supremo convegno, 1895

Giacomo Grosso, Harmony Interrupted, c. 1900

Giacomo Grosso, Virginia Reyter, actress, 1896

Antonio Donghi (1897-1963)

Antonio Donghi (1897-1963), Italian painter and a leading figure in Italian neoclassicism of the 1920s.

Antonio Donghi, Woman at the Cafe, 1932

Antonio Donghi, Giovinetta, 1931

Giovanni Della Rocca (1788-1858)

Giovanni Della Rocca (1788-1858), Italian painter.

Giovanni Della Rocca, A Wealth of Treasure

Giovanni Della Rocca, A Repentant Young Woman

Egisto Lancerotto (1847-1916)

Egisto Lancerotto (1847-1916), Italian painter.

Egisto Lancerotto, Le Odalische di Egisto Lancerotto

Egisto Lancerotto, Picking Daisies

Francesco Ballesio (1860-1923)

Francesco Ballesio (1860-1923, Italian painter.

Francesco Ballesio, Beauty

Francesco Ballesio, Liegende

Francesco Ballesio, Painter in Studio with Model

Giovanni Costa (1833-1893)

Giovanni Costa (1833-1893), Italian painter.

Giovanni Costa, An odalisque with a Red Fan

Giovanni Costa, title unknown

Giovanni Costa, A Young Lady Holding A Basket Of Flowers

Vittorio Matteo Corcus (1859-1933)

Vittorio Matteo Corcus (1859-1933), Italian painter.

Vittorio Matteo Corcus, Reading by the Sea, c.1910

Vittorio Matteo Corcus, Waiting at the Fountain, 1896

Vittorio Matteo Corcus, La Morfinomane, 1899

Vittorio Matteo Corcus, Face of a Woman

Vittorio Matteo Corcus, An Elegant Woman at St. Malo

Vittorio Matteo Corcus, Portrait of Jole Moschini Biagini, 1901

Raffaele Giannetti (1832-1916)

Raffaele Giannetti (1832-1916), Italian painter.

Raffaele Giannetti, A Pompeian Beauty

Raffaele Giannetti, title unknown

Raffaele Giannetti, The Bouquet

Modesto Faustini (1839–1891)

Modesto Faustini (1839–1891), Italian painter.

Modesto Faustini, Sogno di Primavera

Modesto Faustini, L'arresto di Luisa Sanfelice

Emilio Vasarri (1862-1928)

Emilio Vasarri (1862-1928), Italian painter.

Emilio Vasarri, title unknown

Emilio Vasarri, Boda romana

Guglielmo Zocchi (1874-1920)

Guglielmo Zocchi (1874-1920), Italian painter.

Guglielmo Zocchi, Confidences

Guglielmo Zocchi, title unknown

Guglielmo Zocchi, The Cock Fight

Guglielmo Zocchi, Women