Our painting, on its original canvas and still in perfect condition with its original frame, marks an important addition to the catalogue of this Livornese painter's work. It belonged to a German private collection, where it had been since 1922 without once being displayed in public.

The painting portrays the painter Plinio Nomellini's children in a garden in full bloom.

We recognise the painter's daughter Aurora, born in 1904, here shown seated on the ground as she chats with another female figure leaning over her. Behind Aurora we see Laura, born in 1909, a very young girl with red hair and a yellow dress, shown holding a large bunch of blue and mauve flowers. Next to her, little Alceste, born in 1917, is portrayed in the guise of a smiling cherub.

Plinio Nomellini's children often posed as models for their father during the holidays, and this is one of the most successful and serene portraits of the artist's family.

According to the family's collectors, the Florentine silverware company Valsodo bought the painting directly from the artist at the 1922 Venice Biennale as a gift for the director of their German subsidiary, "August Wellner Söhne" in Aue, in Saxony. The painting was handed down by descent to the most recent owners. 

Our painting highlights Nomellini's skill in the use of colour, his astonishing ability to recreate nature itself on the canvas, vibrant with life and light. This skill was to make him one of Italy's best-known and best-loved "Divisionists" of the 20^th century. Similar in conception and subject matter to our portrait of a group in a garden in spring is a picture which Nomellini painted in 1912 entitled Autumn in Versilia, now in the Galleria Internazionale d'Arte Moderna "Ca' Pesaro" in Venice.