Telemaco Signorini, 'Sketch for 'Straw Weavers at Settignano'', about 1880

A young woman wearing a white dress and blue apron is seated at a table weaving straw. Her hair is tied up in a bun and her head is tilted to one side as she concentrates on her task. Her hands have not been painted behind the rapidly brushed-in wooden post but we can imagine them busy at work. This evocative sketch was made from life and we sense the artist’s sympathy for the girl. Another woman, recorded in even sparser detail, is shown in the background. Signorini has devoted most attention to the fall of light on the folds of the girl’s white blouse. His dynamic brushstrokes, ranging from thin sweeps of colour to thicker impastoed areas, suggest form and texture with the greatest of economy.

This sketch, made in about 1880, is a first idea for one of Signorini’s most famous paintings, Straw Weavers at Settignano, which exists in three versions. It shows craft workers in Settignano, a village in the hills above Florence. Straw weaving was only introduced to the area in around 1840, and proved a useful cottage industry to supplement meagre family incomes. The more prominent figure in our sketch relates most closely to the woman at far right of the finished painting.

Signorini was a member of a group of Florentine painters known as the Macchiaioli (which means mark or spot-makers). The Macchaioli rejected the conventions taught by Italian art academies in favour of an art based on modern life. They worked outdoors in order to capture natural colour and light, and were forerunners of the Impressionists. Signorini travelled frequently to London and Paris, bringing back art world news, and was a life-long friend of Degas, whose works hang nearby in the Gallery.