Aldo Pagliacci (1913-1991) Italian, Limited Edition Lithograph. Depicts Harlequin holding a dove, one foot up on a chair. Signed in pencil bottom right. Numbered in pencil 230/375 bottom left. Authentication and hanging instructions on back. 

Overall: 29 X 21 3/4 in. 

Sight: 25 1/4 X 21 in. 

#3841 . 

Aldo Pagliacci was born in 1913 in San Benedetto del Tronto, an Italian town on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. He became a painter and self-taught violin craftsman whose artistic talent was evident from an early age. By the time he was twenty he had already exhibited paintings at the Biennale of Venice and the Rome Quadrennial. After these exhibitions, Pagliacci relocated to Rome around 1930. In 1936 Pagliacci volunteered for military service as part of the Invasion of Ethiopia. During World War II Pagliacci served as a magazine correspondent, but was captured by the British in 1941. He was taken to a Rhodesian prisoner of war camp, where he was assigned to decorate the camp church’s interior. The experience, which he claimed was accomplished in four short months fueled by the cognac and whiskey provided by two Franciscan friars, profoundly affected him for the rest of his life. After his return to Italy in 1946 Pagliacci began a two decade pilgrimage through Central and South America. He lived and worked for extended periods in Mexico, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, and Venezuela, observing local colonial and indigenous cultures, music, and art forms. In 1971 Pagliacci returned to Italy, where he established a studio in Rome and began working in oils profusely. He also traveled throughout northern Europe in the summers, specifically Germany, Sweden, Holland, and Norway. To support his art he crafted exquisite violins and cellos, beginning to work on them as early as 1973, and likely learned how to make them simply by observing other craftsmen in the Marches region of Central Italy, which most closely resembles his unique style. Around 1980 Pagliacci relocated to Forio d’Ischia, an island southwest of the city of Naples, where he continued to paint and live until his death in 1991. Pagliacci’s paintings can be found in major museums of Central and South America as well as many private collections, including the collections  of Nelson Rockefeller and film actor Clifton Webb, and his violins have fetched handsome prices as auctions as well, not only for their craftsmanship but their fine tuning and tone.