Mattia Jona, Master Drawings and Prints, Japanese Prints - Piazzetta Guastalla 5, 20122 Milan, Italy, tel (+39) 02 8053315

ENRICO SACCHETTI (Rome 1877 - Settignano 1967) PORTRAIT OF A MAN WITH MOUSTACHE, 'THE BOOGEYMAN'. Possibly a portrait of Lenin.
Black chalk, signed 'ESacchetti' and titled 'L'uomo nero', 270 x 195 mm.
I cannot exhibit any irrefutable evidence that 'the boogeyman' portrayed by Sacchetti is Vladimir Lenin. I didn't do a serious research. Moreover, the face of the principal architect of the Bolshevik Revolution was one of the most poignant icons of the twentieth century, and this complicates things even more. I can remember, however, that Lenin visited Italy the first time in April 1908, a guest of Gorky in Capri. Here is a picture of him in those circumstances. From 1909 until early 1912, Lenin lived in Paris, moving from there to attend political meetings in other European cities. Here a photograph taken in Paris, 1910.

Caricaturist, painter, illustrator, poster designer, Enrico Sacchetti was born in Rome. After his diploma in Physics and Mathematics, he moved to Florence, where got acquainted to the sculptor Libero Andreotti and attended the studio of the painter Lorenzo Gelati. He first started to work as an illustrator and caricaturist on Milanese journals and, in 1905, he illustrated 'Re Baldoria', written by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, and collaborated to his review 'Poesia'. He moved to Buenos Aires from 1908 to 1911, where he contributed to the newspaper 'El Diario'. In 1912 he joined his friend Andreotti in France, where worked mainly as a fashion designer. At the outbreak of war Sacchetti returned to Italy, where he worked as a propaganda artist during the war; then he collaborated to magazines, created illustrations for books, designed postcards and posters, including the celebrated poster for 'Bitter Campari' in 1921. From the twenties he also wrote articles and book, as 'Vita d'Artista' (1935), winner at the Premio Bagutta. Notwithstanding the appraisal and the fame, Sacchetti led a solitary life until the old age, and committed suicide when he was 91.