Bartolomeo Gianelli (1824-1894), painter from Koper. On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the painter’s birth.

On This Happy Culture Day, the Koper Regional Museum invites you to a presentation of the restored painting Saint Elizabeth among the Prisoners
on Tuesday, 3 December 2024, at 11:00 in the hall of the Belgramoni Tacco Palace, 19 Kidričeva Street, Koper.

Bartolomeo Gianelli is the most important painter of the 19th century in the city of Koper. The son of a blacksmith, he studied at the Venice Academy with the help of a municipal scholarship. At the age of 20, he reaps his first successes and appears as a marinist at exhibitions in Trieste. Professor Pietro Selvatico turns him from his otherwise successful painting of vedutas and landscapes to large-scale compositions with religious themes, such as the altarpiece of St Peter and St Paul for the Cathedral in Koper and the altarpiece of St Boniface for the church in Semedela. In his later years Gianelli devoted himself to the study of the figure; his portrait subjects include Giannandrea Gravisi, Carlo Combi, Domenico Manzoni and other local greats.