Anna Risi (14 July 1839 – 18 May 1900), nicknamed Nanna, was a popular Italian art model. She was a muse and mistress of German painter Anselm Feuerbach,[1] who admired her beauty so much that he painted her at least twenty times.[2]
Biography
Risi was married to a cobbler and lived in Trastevere, a village neighborhood in Rome with a history as working class. Her striking features caught the eye of various artists who came to the city for inspiration, and she modeled for a number of paintings and sculptures in her early 20s. But it wasn't until Frederic Leighton, who would become the President of the Royal Academy in London, that her face became known to the world. Leighton's series of paintings of Risi caught the eye of the Prince of Wales and other notables, canonizing her forever.[3]
From there, Risi became the obsession of Anselm Feuerbach, who painted dozens of paintings of his muse and lover. By then, Risi had left her family and was living with the artist. Feuerbach and his family did much to improve Risi's circumstances and style, but the artist was irritable and suffered from syphilis. Risi ran off with a "rich Englishman", only to return to Feuerbach and beg him forgiveness. He had a new muse at that time, so he rejected her.[4] He wrote: "Yesterday her predecessor accosted me in greatly reduced circumstances", "But I merely waved to her from a distance".
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