Portrait of Ferdinando Porini

Ferdinando Porini (1862-1937), born in Milan, is the son of a talented jurist, Mazzinian and patriot, who shelters in Switzerland in 1856 (he later emigrates to Argentina) and returns to Italy only on the eve of the Unity. Ferdinando served for over forty years in the administrative offices of the Municipality of his city. Cinofilo and hunter, keen on shooting, in the will, in which he appoints his grandchildren and apologizes for "leaving little money" (a total of 70,000 lire, of which 50,000 wants to be donated to the Ospedale Maggiore), asks to be portrayed in a hunter's outfit and with his dogs. The sum would have given him the right to a half-length portrait: the heirs took charge of having a full-length portrait by Mario Maserati executed at their expense; active above all in the painting of sacred genre, the artist uses here a marked design and clear backgrounds; the "decision" of the pictorial line without light and shade evokes, rather than a photograph, a billboard.