Saverio Della Gatta

(Lecce, 1758 - 1828)

Xavier della Gatta's artistic career can only be broadly defined due to the scarcity of documentary evidence. It spans from 1777, the year in which his name appears in a document as a student of Jacopo Cestaro at the Academy of Drawing, to 1827, the year in which his last known works are dated. What is certainly well known, however, is the painter's fundamental role as a dedicated disseminator of the artistic themes of the second half of the 18th century. These themes were originally aimed only at a small elite of cultured and passionate individuals, but later became accessible to a broader and more diverse audience: the intellectual and commercial bourgeoisie, which from the late 18th century onwards shaped aesthetic trends throughout Europe. An excellent draftsman and sensitive interpreter of watercolor painting, Xavier della Gatta achieved outstanding results, especially in his two mediums—tempera and gouache—holding a worthy rivalry with painters such as Giovanni Battista Lusieri, Pietro Fabris, and Philip Hackert. Indeed, late-18th-century collectors recognized della Gatta's artistic qualities far beyond the mere replication of successful models. The painting presented here allows us to better and definitively define the multifaceted output and versatile technical skill of this artist, who also excelled in oil painting with magnificent results. Indeed, with the exception of a few paintings that either bear traces of della Gatta's signature or are attributable to him, this is, to date, the most significant demonstration of his mastery of this pictorial technique.

See: A. Borzelli, The Academy of drawing in Naples in the second half of the 18th century, in Napoli Nobilissima, IX, 1900, fasc.VII, pages 110-111C;

C. Knight, Sir William Hamilton's picture gallery in Palazzo Serra, in Napoli Nobilissima, XXIV, 1985, fasc.I-II, pag. 45-59C;

C.I.M. Williams, Lusieri's Masterpiece?, in The Burlington Magazine, CXXIX, 1987, n. 1012, page. 457-459