![Antonio Mancini - Il Saltimbanco [1879]](http://farm1.staticflickr.com/738/23626362435_601b9e30d2_o.jpg)
Antonio Mancini (Rome, November 14, 1852 - December 28, 1930) was an Italian painter. Mancini worked at the forefront of the Verismo movement, an indigenous Italian response to 19th-century Realist aesthetics. His usual subjects included children of the poor, juvenile circus performers, and musicians he observed in the streets of Naples. His portrait of a young acrobat in Il Saltimbanco exquisitely captures the fragility of the boy whose impoverished childhood is spent entertaining pedestrian crowds. In 1881, Mancini suffered a disabling mental illness. He settled in Rome in 1883 for twenty years, then moved to Frascati where he lived until 1918. During this period of Mancini's life, he was often destitute and relied on the help of friends and art buyers to survive.
[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 203.8 x 110.8 cm]
