Italian · Symbolism · Divisionism
Cipriano Mannucci
b. 18 May 1882, Nice — d. 1970, Florence
Cipriano Mannucci (1882–1970) was an Italian painter, born in Nice and active in Florence, who painted landscapes, genre scenes and Symbolist subjects; Verso la Luce is attributed to him.
1 work in the collection
Works by Cipriano Mannucci
Cipriano Antonio Mannucci (1882–1970) was an Italian painter, born in Nice and active mainly in Florence, whose work moved between landscape, costume genre and Symbolist allegory. The Symbolist painting Verso la Luce (Towards the Light) is attributed to him in our catalogue.
Life in brief
Documentation on Mannucci is limited and comes mostly from auction houses and dealers. They agree that he was born in Nice on 18 May 1882 and died in Florence in 1970, and that he studied at the Santa Croce school of decorative and industrial arts. A solo exhibition in London in 1921 is reported to have been a public and critical success. His surviving works on the market include Tuscan village landscapes, painted around the 1920s, and costume scenes such as a couple in carnival masks.
Style
Writers on his early work point to the influence of Divisionism, the Italian method of building color and light from separate strokes of pure pigment, practiced by painters such as Giovanni Segantini and Gaetano Previati. That approach was closely linked in Italy with Symbolism, and it suits a picture about light and darkness.
Verso la Luce
Verso la Luce shows a pale young woman walking through the night, holding a small lamp, while a shadowy, skull-faced figure follows close behind her. The meaning is in the title: she moves toward the light while death trails her. The image belongs to the same family as the Symbolist death-and-the-maiden pictures in our Symbolism and Death in Art collections. We have not found a museum record, date or medium for the painting, so its attribution should be treated as provisional.
Where to see his work
Mannucci's paintings appear mainly through Italian and international auction houses; we have not found works in public collections. Note that some older web pages about him mistakenly reproduce a biography of the Polish painter Wilhelm Kotarbiński.
Questions & answers
Who painted Verso la Luce?
Verso la Luce (Towards the Light) is attributed to the Italian painter Cipriano Mannucci (1882–1970). It shows a pale woman carrying a small lamp through the night while a skull-faced figure follows her. No museum record or date for it has been found.
Who was Cipriano Mannucci?
Cipriano Antonio Mannucci was an Italian painter born in Nice in 1882 who died in Florence in 1970. He studied at the Santa Croce school of decorative arts, painted landscapes and genre scenes, and reportedly had a successful solo show in London in 1921.
What does Verso la Luce mean?
Verso la luce is Italian for 'towards the light.' In the painting, a young woman walks with a lamp while a death figure follows her, a Symbolist image of life moving toward light, or the soul toward salvation, with mortality close behind.