The laundress

Pasquale Celommi (Montepagano 1851 – Roseto degli Abruzzi 1928)

As if posing in front of a lens, Celommi has represented here the model of many of his other works dressed as a laundress. Leaning over a tub filled with water, with her hands pressing the soapy cloth onto the pretola, she looks serene and smiling at the viewer.
Far from Patini’s social themes and dramatic accents, Celommi’s verism appears to be an idyllic and calm, which makes use of an extraordinary technical skill in the application of colour, always rendered in dark tones and spread with mellow brushstrokes.
The laundress, one of the paintings that made him famous, well exemplifies these characteristics, not least the power of detail penetration that often leads Celommi towards an analysis of the detail within the detail.
Here then, in a sort of virtuoso exercise, is the artist’s lingering on the peeling wall in the background of the representation, on the laundress’ swollen and wet hands, on the gold rings glittering on her right ring finger; and again, the complacent lingering on the “sciacquajje” – the hoop earrings with a pendant inside – on the coral necklace, on the lace of the shirt and on the flower pattern of the shawl.
Presented to great public acclaim at the 1888 Teramo Workers’ Exhibition and then at the 1892 Colombiade in Genoa, the painting was later lost until it was found in São Paulo, Brazil, in 2003. Since 2007, it has been part of the Collections of the National Museum of Abruzzo.