GIULIO ROSATI
Italian 1858-1917

Biography

AVAILABLE WORKS

Orientalist classicist genre and figure painter Giulio Rosati was born in Rome in 1858 to a banking and military family. Giulio studied at the Accademia di San Luca under artists Francesco Podesti and Dario Querci. He then joined the Roman studio of the popular history and genre painter Luis Álvarez y Catalá (1836-1901), director of the Prado Museum in Madrid, who belonged to the colony of Spanish painters in Rome which included the Orientalist artist Mariano Fortuny (1871-1949).

For most of his career Rosati focused on Orientalist art working mainly in watercolour and only occasionally in oil. He depicted his love for the colours and exoticism of the Orient, authentically depicting Arab settings and themes of the Maghreb and emphasizing the nobility of Muslim culture. He became one of the most prolific Orientalist artists of the 19th century, but never travelled to the Middle East. He preferred to sell his work through art dealers, rarely participating in exhibitions, although his “Oriental Scene” was exhibited at the Exposition di Belle Arte in 1900 in Rome. His son, Alberto Rosati (1893-1971) also became an Orientalist painter although he was far less productive than his father.