Italian painter. Having studied in Rome with Domenico Corvi and Pompeo Batoni, Matteini moved first to Florence (Angelica and Medoro, 1794) and then to Milan, where he encountered Bossi and Appiani. In 1807, he settled in Venice and taught at the Accademia. A prolific portraitist, he brought new life to the genre by studying the work of Reynolds and Gainsborough.
The painting belongs to the sentimental style of portraiture at which Matteini excelled. The girl’s graceful pose, her gentle expression, the sobriety of the composition, and the relationship of the figure to the landscape evoke the sophisticated neoclassical tastes also present in contemporary works by artists like Angelica Kauffmann.
In this preparatory drawing for a painting, the artist shows a sentimental interpretation of the taste for antiquity. Even when his compositions concede to earlier fashion, such as the Nuptial Allegory, Matteini remains firmly in the sentimental vein.
