Fine del Carnevale

Fine del Carnevale is a beautiful etching and hand-colored gouache, finely engraved on copper and printed on laid paper. The work, which presents a remarkable quality of strokes and brilliant colors, is unsigned, but it is part of the 20 plates engraved in 1820 by the Swedish artist Carl Gustaf Hjalmar Mörner (or umo?rner) during his stay in Rome, certainly influenced by the style and manner of the coeval folkloric prints made by Bartolomeo Pinelli (cfr. Hermanin F., Una collezione di stampe e disegni dell’antico carnevale romano , Bollettino d’Arte, Rome, year I, January 1907, p. 28, cit.).

The title is engraved on plate on the lower center of the image, whilst on the lower right the print is numbered 20.

The quality and conditions of preservation of the print are very good, except for a barely visible stain on the upper margin at the center, a small fungal foxing on the right margin, and some tiny damages on the paper sheet on the lower right margin.

The engraving represents, with precision and irony, besides drawing quality and color coating, the feast of the last evening of the famous Roman Carnival when, once the games, the contests, the jokes, and disguises have ended, the Roman people spent the last hours before Lent, a period of penitence and fasting, in a typical tavern, to eat meat and drink alcohol, forbidden from the following day. The scene is split into three parts by the three arches of the large cellar and by the three set tables. Some of the characters are very amusing, like the couple entering on the left, still sober, in opposition with the couple going out on the right with a fully drunk man.  A cat and a dog appear in the foreground.

The scene is thus very animated, engraved and then colored with pleasant strokes and vivid hues. A relevant piece, describing with precision the atmosphere in Rome during the Carnival period.