Man with Stick and Wallet

Antonio Piccinni 1846 - 1920

Summary

An elderly man standing with a stick under his left arm and a bag over his right shoulder. He is facing to the right with his head inclined towards the viewer. His right hand is tucked under his jacket and his left hand is held out with the palm upward. He wears a hat and a shabby jacket and his trousers are rolled up at the ankle. His shoes are bound to his feet. This etching was one of a collection formed by print expert PG Hamerton (1834-94) for the Manchester Art Museum, an educational gallery which opened in 1886 in the industrial suburb of Ancoats. The collection was transferred to the City Art Gallery in 1912, the Art Museum maintaining that they did not have enough space to display it. On acquisition, the prints were displayed together, with a catalogue of the pithy comments on each print that Hamerton had made in 1882. For this work, he had noted, 'A Roman beggar, I suppose, from the position of his hand. This etching has not the brilliant quality of some of the others, being too uniformly grey. The copper has been dirtied on purpose with sandpaper.'