Coming from a long line of Roman antique dealers, Paolo Antonacci has worked for over two decades in the prestigious Rome and London galleries belonging to his father, Paolo Antonacci opened his own gallery in via del Babuino in 1998. In the Fall of 2016, he moved to a new gallery in via Alibert at the corner with via Margutta, right in the heart of the "Roman Art District".

From the beginning of his career Paolo's interest and passion was devoted to paintings and artists from between the late eighteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century, with a particular eye on the Vedutismo. In 1998 the gallery published the first catalogue devoted to views of the Grand Tour and since then published a volume devoted to a different aspect of that intriguing subject every year.

The gallery participates in major Italian antiques fairs such as the Florence Biennale at Palazzo Corsini and the Biennale d'Arte at Palazzo Venezia in Rome. The gallery has also been a regular presence at prestigious international fairs such as Masterpiece in London, Highlights in Munich, Tefaf Maastricht, Fine Arts Paris.

The gallery has sold important pictures to major museums and institutions such as the Museo di Roma, the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna Roma, the Musei Vaticani, the American Academy of Rome, the Polo Museale Fiorentino in Florence. Other significant foreign institutions and private collectors are among the gallery's clients.

Enrico D’ASSIA

Rome, 1927 – Langen (Germany), 1999

Travelling on the Nile

Tempera on card, 525 x 715 mm
Signed and dated bottom left : Assia 88

Exhibition:
Enrico d’Assia, Galleria Carlo Virgilio, 20th November 1990 – 12th January 1991, exhibition catalogue ed. L. Arcangeli, Rome 1990

The painting shows a broken obelisk lying on a log-filled raft logs sailing down the Nile, a tangle of roots at its lower end, where the artist has depicted an ancient statue of the ‘Thinker’. In this picture, a companion piece to another tempera by d’Assia set on the banks of the Tiber and now in a private collection in Rome, the artist addresses a number of his favourite themes, such as Egypt and Classical sculpture.

Enrico d’Assia (Prince Heinrich of Hesse-Kassel, b. Rome, 30 October 1927 – † Langen, 18 November 1999), a painter, stage designer and costume designer, was the second son of Prince Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, and Princess Mafalda of Savoy. He was born in Rome, in a small yet elegant home in Rome, situated between the Parioli neighbourhood and the Villa Savoia and christened ‘Villa Polissena’ by his parents in memory of Princess Polissena Cristina of Hesse-Rotenburg.

Enrico, also known as ‘Dendy’, spent his youth in various Savoy residences in Italy and others in Germany. Completing his schooling in Germany, he subsequently enrolled at the Accademia d’Arte in Rome, enjoying a happy childhood until the age of 17. During the turbulent war years he initially hid in the Vatican, before fleeing to Germany where he managed to survive the air raids, though tragically he lost his mother, Mafalda, in Buchenwald.

Many of his paintings and watercolours are now in public museums and private collections as well as in private galleries both in Italy and abroad, invariably attracting lavish praise from scholars and the general public alike. His style, influenced by Surrealism and Magical Realism, is remarkable for its analytical draughtsmanship and brushwork. He drew his inspiration from Magritte, from the Russian painter and set designer Eugéne Berman and from the Milanese painter Fabrizio Clerici. In his capacity as a stage designer, he contributed to a number of sets for opera.

He died in the Schloss Wolfsgarten, a former hunting lodge in Langen in the Hesse region, some 15 km south of Frankfurt-am-Main, in 1999.