I Moccoletti

I Moccoletti is a pleasant etching and hand-colored gouache, finely engraved on copper and printed on laid paper. The artwork 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,b January 1907, p. 28, cit.).

The title is engraved on plate on the lower center, and the print is numbered 16 on the lower right. The quality and conditions of preservation of the work are very good, except for a tiny tear of the paper on the upper left edge.

This original artwork, very animated, represents a genre scene, with men and women, some of them in disguise, taking part in the Festa dei Moccoletti in Rome, during the folkloric Roman Carnival. In the foreground, there is an elegant carriage pulled by two horses passing through the crowd that the gendarmes are trying to contain.

The Festa dei Moccoletti , celebrated in Via del Corso in the evening of the Fat Tuesday , with the collective game in which people had to keep their candles lighted-up (in Roman dialect moccoletto ) whilst trying to blow those of the other participants.

The print is not only of high quality, masterfully engraved, and with brilliant colors, but also a folkloric and fun image narrating the carefreeness of life in Rome during the famous Carnival.