Il Corso

Il Corso 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; the print is numbered 9 on the lower right. The quality and the conditions of preservation of this original print are very good.

This original print shows a Roman crowd walking in Via del Corso during the Carnival , a period of carefreeness and game for Romans since antiquity. The events and public games took place right in Via del Corso, where numerous Roman citizens, of any social extraction, gathered in disguise, just like it is represented in the work.

The scene is animated and picturesque. Men and women are presented in disguise in the grip of the euphoria of the feast day in which anything is licit: jokes, pranks, wine and promiscuity, though supervised by the many gendarmes. In the background, some workshops.

The engraving is pleasant and fun, brightly colored, presenting a dynamic composition. This is an unusual and precious proof of the history and folklore of Rome in the XIX century.