Beginning with paint

Exploring Pasquarosa’s home and history

By Federica Parretti

Originally published in

RESTORATION CONVERSATIONS magazine

Autumn/Winter 2025 - Issue 8

Pasquarosa, 1913, Still life with flowers and a fan, Civico Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea

We passed Tivoli, with its lovely view of the whole plain from the Aniene to the Tiber valleys, dotted with their renowned Roman hills. Then we continued on to Arsoli, amidst nature still groggy from its sleep, which offered unexpected hues nonetheless. Perhaps, these are the sights and impressions that inspired the numerous painters from Italy and abroad who flocked here to the town of Anticoli Corrado, from the eighteenth century onwards, until the tradition became consolidated and twentieth-century artists settled in the town for good, refurbishing homes that morphed into real artist colonies.

When a Roman friend learned that Anticoli Corrado was the destination of our mini-break in Lazio, she had nodded knowingly: of course, the village that is famous for being home to wet nurses who came to Rome, in the service of bourgeois families, or for its models who went to the capital to pose in artist ateliers. Some of those models became these artists’ brides, and a number of them would later help guide their husbands’ stylistic and economic choices, supporting them with determination, as true entrepreneurs.

Other women who went to pose became painters in their own right. Pasquarosa Marcelli Bertoletti was one of these, and her grandson Paolo Bertoletti, and his wife Carmela, were who we were travelling to meet. The migration of young women from many parts of Lazio to Rome, but also Paris and London, is still a story largely untold beyond Italian borders, but it is one that excites us and moved us to embark on our journey.

Once in the village’s main square, Stefano, my partner and traveling companion, tries to figure out by looking at every young woman he meets (very few, in fact) whether this place so famous for its beautiful ladies, continues to live up to its name. Discouraged by the lack of clues, we set off down the main street, where we find the Bertoletti house.

It is a graceful two-storey building, rounded on one side like the apse of a church, and its street-level walls are built in typical village stone. The second floor, in pinkish brick, has many arched windows, no doubt designed with the idea of having natural light at all times of day: the largest ones look north-east and open onto an expansive view of the Simbruini mountains.

Paolo and Carmela – with their dog – welcome us cordially. Excited by visiting strangers, the dog tries to draw attention to himself, until Carmela concedes to playing in-door catch, and the rhythm of that ball, repeatedly caught and returned, punctuates Paolo’s words and memories, as he takes us to explore the house and its art treasures.

“Pasquarosa was a very caring grandmother; I remember her well, because I also lived with her as a child. We have a lot of Nino Bertoletti’s paintings here, but Pasquarosa’s were almost all sold. It was Nino who wanted her to be seen and admired. He encouraged his wife to exhibit and sell, and acted as her manager.”

Paolo’s eyes are shining as he speaks. He is still moved by the vivid memory of his grandparents; it is almost as if he can see Pasquarosa wandering through these rooms, cleaning her brushes and those of her husband – still thick with colour.  Under one window, their two palettes are lying on top of each other, motionless. They seem frozen with the very different hues that animate their paintings. Pasquarosa’s are primary and pure, in their essential state. Nino’s are much more nuanced, treated and blended, in an effort to achieve softer, more mediated shades.

Pasquarosa, 1914, Teapot on a Rug, ‘From Muse to Painter’, Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art

Courtesy of Archivio Nino e Pasquarosa Bertoletti, Rome

“She never drew,” said Paolo, following our gaze. “Pasquarosa always began with paint. Colour was her starting point. Sometimes, it was Nino who drew a few marks on her canvas, to give a starting point, for reference.”

“Her painting is fresh and true, and her ‘artistic illiteracy’ an asset,” he continues. “In an era that saw the rupturing of art’s status quo, Pasquarosa could freely venture past unexplored boundaries without reverence, without fear of breaking the rules – like a child painting what she sees. Hers was the absolute freedom of an explorer,” her grandson says. “Critics of her time were very divided about considering freedom an artistic value, and some of them attacked her, telling her she best go back to the other side of the easel. They were ruthless with women who approached the art of painting. Yet, Pasquarosa’s husband convinced her to press forward, not to give up. She was always with brush in hand, but she managed to reconcile her family, her children – and then her grandchildren, her well-loved husband and her art. Until the end of her days, she painted a lot.”

“This is Pasquarosa at Villa Strohl-Fern, where my grandparents met,” Paolo explains. “Pasquarosa left Anticoli Corrado very young, at sixteen. Her family was very poor, and peasants at that time were all but strangled by the constant taxes the new Italian state and its landowners burdened them with. The harvest, impoverished by weather that could nullify a year’s work with a single frost, did not produce enough to feed each family’s many children. Their story is always the same: they leave the village as soon as they are able to work, in this case, as adolescents.”

Pasquarosa is joined by her friend Candida Toppi. Both are beautiful, and their physical features and characteristics are an exact match with traits in vogue at the time. Therefore, they can follow the path well-trodden by so many of their already famous counterparts from the region. It is easy to find young artists in the capital. Even Pasquarosa’s Aunt Marietta (Maria Lucantoni) is already a sought-after model in Rome, and is willing to teach her niece the trade. If Pasquarosa is lucky, she may even find a husband among one of these painters and stay in that environment. Yes, it will be bohemian at times, but undoubtedly better and more stimulating than what they left behind. Pasquarosa proves even more daring: as early as 1913, she poses for painter Nino Bertoletti and soon begins to paint in his studio, where he teaches her the rudiments of his craft. Within the year, the couple marry, in a civil ceremony. Pasquarosa immediately begins exhibiting her works with the enthusiasm of a young woman with nothing to lose, debuting at the Third Roman Secession, a very important exhibition known for presenting a plethora of new painters.

Pasquarosa, c. 1914 Calendulas, courtesy of Archivio Nino e Pasquarosa Bertoletti, Rome

Critics were divided, but one thing is certain: her art did not go unnoticed. Fame was not long in coming: Pasquarosa was present at all the major Roman exhibition events in the decades that followed. Her London solo show, in 1929, sealed her international recognition. Despite her success, the myth of the Anticoli Corrado model-turned-painter would stay with her for the whole of her life. English reviews featured titles like ‘Model as Artist’ (Morning Post), ‘A Roman model who has become a famous artist’ (Italian Mail) and ‘Artist’s model turns painter’ (Yorkshire Evening Post), writes Daniele Di Cola in his essay ‘The Reasons for Style’ in Muse di Anticoli Corrado, the 2017 catalogue of the exhibition organised in her home town’s Civic Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. More recently, almost 50 years after her death, London dedicated another major exhibition to her in 2024 at the Estorick Collection of Italian Art entitled ‘Pasquarosa: From Muse to Painter’, reaffirming this dual role, which likely will never abandon her.

The afternoon flew by with the fluidity of memory. Finally, we realise we have taken too much of our kind hosts’ time – dog included – so we take our leave, hoping to see them again soon to talk more about Pasquarosa, perhaps in Florence. In the meantime, Stefano and I will continue our journey, in search of other painter-models and those who remember them. We have only just begun to rediscover their incredible world, linked to an era that is no more. Still – their stories are sure to guide us towards many new friendships and destinations… until we meet again.

FEDERICA PARRETTI