Juvenile self-portrait

Alessandro Ferrarini 1834

Alessandro Ferrarini made this self-portrait at the age of 18. Born in Emilia, he soon moved to Florence where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. He resided in Prato, and after completing his academic training there, he became an important drawing master who had pupils far more famous than himself: just think of Gabriele d'Annunzio and Alessandro Franchi.

Technical information

Author: Alessandro Ferrarini
Title: Juvenile self-portrait
Date: 1834
Material and technique: Oil on panel
Size: 50x60 cm
Location: Palazzo Pretorio Museum
Third Floor

The Juvenile Self-Portrait is rightly part of the Restoration period, an era characterised by a strong interest in portraits and self-portraits made with extreme realism. An example of this is the attention with which the painter renders the textures of different fabrics.
Alessandro Ferrarini taught drawing and painting in Prato for many years at the Conservatorio di San Niccolò and the Collegio Cicognini. It was here that he met among his students the young Gabriele D'Annunzio, a boarder at the college between 1879 and 1880. The poet always retained memories of the academic drawing master, as can be seen in his writings in which, recalling his youth, he remembered the time when the now elderly Ferrarini invited him to copy Filippo Lippi's frescoes in Prato Cathedral with him.
Ferrarini was also responsible for discovering the talent of the famous painter from Prato, Alessandro Franchi, to whom he was always bound by deep friendship. Thanks to the support of his drawing master and his own abilities, which Cesare Guasti also recognised, Franchi was able to obtain a grant from the City of Prato so that he could continue his artistic studies in Siena.