A large scene painted with fidelity to reality and attention to light: some young women, depicted in the foreground with attention to detail and in the background with synthetic brushstrokes, rest in the sun on the Vescovado stopovers, in the Venice district of Livorno. They wear long skirts, aprons, handkerchiefs and clogs. They are the cenciaiole, commoners from Livorno who collect and work in the factory, dividing them by fabric and color, the rags, that is the rags that will be used to make paper. In the background, the New Fortress, the palaces of via degli Avvalorati and Piazza della Repubblica.

In a simple street, which runs alongside a building with a dirty wall, Yorick walks with ease and confidence, in profile, looking forward, one hand in his pocket while the other holds a cigarette. On the wall, on the left, some childish drawings - which enjoyed interest in those years, as shown by Corrado Ricci's lecture on Children's Art of 1885 and his subsequent volume of 1887 - signed Ada, the stepdaughter of Corcos; on the right verses dictated by Yorick himself (who with irony attribute the features of the subject to the poor skill of the painter). Not the classic official portrait then, but a snapshot drawn with rather broad and quick brushstrokes but with attention to detail, in which irony prevails, one of Yorick's qualities.

With bright and sometimes strident colors, applied with quick and full-bodied brush strokes that summarize the shapes, Liegi describes the vitality of the interior of the Livorno Provision Market: in the background the profiles of the architecture created by the municipal engineer Angiolo Badaloni, the signs and shop entrances, including a butcher's shop; in the center, the counters of the central hall, the goods on display, the confusion of people ordering, selling, buying products; in the foreground, on the right, a “barroccio”, a typical two-wheeled cart.

In a field of dry grass, under a scorching sun, a young farmer advances with his face in shadow protected by a straw hat, a bundle of hay in the basket on his shoulders and a sickle hanging from his neck. Behind him, a dark spot in the background, is another farmer busy taming a runaway horse. The high and inclined horizon, taken from Fattori, separates a strip of brown land from the gray-blue sky. The composition is flooded with light, the true protagonist of the painting, while the color frays in long and thin brushstrokes.

In front of a sky full of dark clouds on the horizon and clearer above, in the warm light of the sunset, the remains of the Torre del Magnale stand out, surrounded by some white buildings, placed guarding a large inlet in which the colors of the sea and sky merge, separated only by a thin strip of land. In the small painting Fattori takes up the stretch of coast with essentiality: large fields of color, applied with flat brushes, synthetically define the planes of the landscape and the volumes of the architecture. The lean paint lets the wood grain of the tablet show through.

Giovanni Fattori's Last Brush Strokes deals with one of the artist's most cherished themes, namely the representation of the landscape animated by the presence of animals. The setting recalls some previous works made in Antignano, in the southern area of Livorno: at the end of his artistic and existential path, therefore, the artist confirms his interest in the beloved places of his hometown.

The painting, with a strongly horizontal format, is not finished and shows some signs of pencil drawing and first rapid brushstrokes with poorly covering colors, which outline the shapes. A straw gazebo and a horse are the main protagonists of this landscape, characterized by an arid land, in the warm tones of ocher and earth, overlooking the sea. The horizon is marked with a sharp line drawn in pencil, above which is a gray-blue sky dotted with clouds. Below, it is a dark spot that the painter did not have time to define.

At the age of 80, the Livorno-based painter Giovanni Fattori is still active and paints this portrait of his partner Fanny Martinelli, a close friend of his second wife Marianna Bigazzi (married in 1891, who died on 1 May 1903), whom he will marry in 1907. As in other portraits of loved ones, for example Portrait of the First Wife (c. 1865, Rome, National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art), here too Fattori leaves an intense memory of the woman who had become "at home", "full of care e regards »(letter to his stepdaughter Giulia, 19 August 1903), and who died a few months before Fattori, in May 1908. The portrait was exhibited in 1906 at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Milan.

Fanny Martinelli is portrayed here at 63, her gray hair gathered behind her neck, her gaze averted from the viewer and absorbed in his thoughts, in a simple, dark dress, illuminated only by the light-colored collar. The woman is reclining on a red velvet armchair, enriched with white lace, with her hands crossed on her lap. The environment is intimate and collected, characterized and made even more familiar by the painting hanging on the back wall, evocation of Maremma Mandrie. The work is made with a fluid and flaky brushstroke and with soft and shaded passages of color.

In 1894 the Livorno painter Giovanni Fattori was 69 years old and during the summer, as well as in those years, he was a guest in the villa of the Florentine businessman and politician Antonio Civelli in Antignano, south of Livorno, to give painting lessons to the daughter Corinna, portrayed by him a year earlier in La scolarina (1893, private collection). The stay in Antignano and the making of this painting are documented in a letter dated July 31, 1894 to the pupil Adele Galeotti, in which Fattori refers to the measurements of the painting and underlines its workmanship "from life".

The Livorno hills above Antignano, bathed in sunlight, are the true protagonists of this painting. The oblique cut of the slope that descends towards the sea divides the scene clearly in two: on the left the warm colors of the earth alternate with the changing greens of the vegetation; on the right the blue tones of the sky and the sea prevail, interrupted only by small dark boats. Compared to other works of the same period, this one stands out for its diffused brightness, for a less synthetic and more minute brushstroke, for the careful play between light and shadow through fine passages between light and dark.

The Livorno painter Giovanni Fattori realizes the undated painting "Mrs. Martelli in Castiglioncello", after he found solace in the estate of the Florentine art critic Diego Martelli in Castiglioncello at the age of 42 following the loss of his first wife in March 1867, where the group of “Macchiaioli” painters had already met for some time to refine research on light and colors given by “spots”. This and the subsequent stays of Fattori on the estate until 1875 contributed to developing his painting with “spots” of color, the attention to the landscape studied from life and the outdoor portrait.

Lying on a chair, similar to that of the portrait made by Fattori Diego Martelli in Castiglioncello (private collection), Teresa Fabbrini, former prostitute, then historical companion of the Florentine art critic, rests in the cool of the holm oaks. The wide shot also allows you to represent the typical landscape of the area, with the pine forest in the background, and to play on the contrast between lights and shadows. The painting, built with “spots” of color placed side by side, was made during one of his stays in Castiglioncello between 1867 and 1875, probably in 1867, due to its proximity to the portrait of Diego Martelli, attributed by critics to that year.