Description
Emilio Magistretti (Milan 1851 – Milan 1936) – Young Woman with a Tiger.
Oil on canvas, in a period carved and lacquered wooden frame.
Signed lower left: «E. Magistretti».
Emilio Magistretti was a Milanese painter active between the second half of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th. Trained in the Lombard academic tradition, he spent a formative period in Paris, where he absorbed Impressionist and Post-Impressionist influences and integrated them with a solid realist foundation. His portrait production stands out for its vibrant handling of colour and its ability to convey the psychology of the sitter with restraint and precision. The painting depicts a young woman shown half-length, turned three-quarters with her gaze directed to the side, in a composed and self-assured pose. Her left arm rests around the neck of a tiger, rendered with naturalistic attention to its striped coat. The background, worked in loose strokes of green and ochre, lends depth without distracting from the figure. The execution is consistent with the conventions of late 19th-century Parisian painting, the period to which the work most plausibly belongs.
Condition report: Relined canvas. The pictorial surface is in good condition.
