Vincenzo Catalano - La Sonnambula

oil on canvas, 198 x 145 cm
Exhibition: 1848 Exhibition of Fine Arts of the Royal Bourbon Museum, p. 36, no. 208.

The subject of this painting is the somnambula Amina, the famous protagonist of the opera set in an unspecified village in Switzerland that Bellini composed to a libretto by Felice Romani and which debuted on the evening of 6 March 1831 at the Teatro Carcano in Milan with the famous Giuditta Pasta in the role of the main character.
The author was Vincenzo Catalano, a painter active at the Bourbon court in the mid-19th century. In the Fine Arts Catalogue of the Royal Bourbon Museum of 15 August 1848, Catalano is listed as an honorary professor of the Royal Institute of Fine Arts, author of a work described as follows: 'No. 208. Sonnambula. Carefree, indecisive, she slowly crosses a bridge, illuminated on one side by the light of her lantern, and on the other by the uncertain moonlight. Quad.'.