Edoardo Del Neri

Exhibited by Berardi Galleria d'Arte

Material oil on canvas

Dimensions 60 x 50 cm

Place of Creation Rome

Price €18,000

Status Vetted

About the Work

Woman from Terracina (early 1920s) exemplifies Del Neri’s synthesis of realism, expressionist color, and ethnographic sensitivity. The elderly woman, derived from an earlier engraving shown at the 1922 Mostra degli Amatori e Cultori di Belle Arti, maintains the same solemn, wrinkled face and protective shawl. In the painting, the chromatic intensity recalls German Expressionism, while the background introduces the “Lestre,” primitive reed dwellings characteristic of the Pontine Marshes before their reclamation (1929–41).

This archetypal figure - firm, frontal, and stoic - embodies the hardships and enduring spirit of rural women. Her presence aligns with Del Neri’s broader interest in depicting female figures as guardians of ancestral traditions, an approach also visible in works from the Lazio countryside and in his Libyan subjects. Woman from Terracina maintains the Secessionist love of line, structure, and character, but transforms these elements into a far more grounded, ethnographic, and expressionist vision. It bridges Central European modernism with the raw human reality of the Italian rural world—making the painting feel both connected to and boldly independent from the Secessionist tradition.

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Provenance

Private Collection

Literature

Secessione ed esotismo. L'avventura artistica di Edoardo Del Neri, exhibition catalogue curated by A. Delneri R. Sgubin, Gorizia 2005, p. 136, n. 117 (the woodcut related to the painting is illustrated).

Mostra antologica del pittore Edoardo Del Neri 1890 - 1932, exhibition catalogue, Gorizia 1977, p. 57, n. 68 (the woodcut related to the painting is illustrated)