Head of an Italian Woman

During the period 1879-1887, Frank Duveneck lived and worked mainly in Italy. From 1879 through the early 1880s he spent summers in Venice and winters in Florence, where he instructed a group of student-followers who became known as the Duveneck Boys. Following his marriage in March of 1886 to his former student Elizabeth Boot , he lived close to Florence at the Villa Castellani. The artist’s Italian peasant figures of the mid and late 1880s show a shift toward a more studied and careful finish, a greater refinement of contour, and a generally lighter and cooler palette. Duveneck’s figure paintings of the time generally generated numerous drawings, oil sketches and oil studies of individual figures, and at least one finished oil study for this work is known (Private Collection). At the Villa Castellani, Duveneck regularly worked from the local models that his wife procured, and which she often sketched alongside him.