Italian Paintings signed F. Vitale or F. Vitape: who is artist?

I have these two paintings, probably 19th century Italian. signed F. Vitale or F. Vitape. Was wondering who the artist was. The paintings are "attributed" to Ferrucio Vitale, (1875-1833) who was an American engineer and landscape architect or landscape designer. However, to me this may be a misattribution. Why would a landscape architect or engineer be a master artisanal painter on the side? The style of the paintings seems to be too European to have been made by an American. Anyone have suggestions for an alternative artist?

 

See these? Someone's copying someone.

https://www.arsvalue.com/en/lots/37...2-oli-su-tela-cm-40z24-a-scugnizzo-b?nav=True

https://www.askart.com/upcoming_auc...1235322/ferruccio_vitale?alert=info#preview-2

Debora

 

I think my paintings are the originals because they are very yellowed canvases in reverse, with an "old, earthy" wood smell, and the facial expressions are too "uniquely antiquely European" and "esthetically magical" to be the copies. The copy of the yarn lady you showed has a much more kitschy facial expression than the one in my painting. The male painting has a distorted background because I had some trouble making a digital photo of it, so I used GIMP to phenagle the background, although the portrait detail itself is authentic. yeah, the chicken and egg question: which artist originally created the actual original? And if the copy is better quality than the original, is the copy better than the original?

But this is all irrelevant to the main question: who is F. Vitale (or Vitape?). Is there some 19th century Italian reference to this artist?

 

The landscape architect & the painter seem to be one & the same Ferruccio Vitale. (Think you can forget 'Vitape.') Although his career in landscape seems to have been in America, hence the description of him as American, one source says he was 'Florence born', so Italian by birth, seems with a nostalgic streak for the Old Country. He had to be able to draw for either pursuit. Leonardo was certainly an artist & an engineer. I see no conflict.

The colors on yours are much brighter than anything else I see attributed to him on the Internet. Maybe he changed his palette, but if I were an art appraiser familiar with other examples of his work, I'd have doubts about these two.

 

Why don't you post photographs of the front and back of both paintings including frames so we can see what you're seeing (e.g. "very yellowed canvases)? Yours are examples of genre paintings of rather pleasing but cliched subjects which were probably created for decorative purposes by various Italian artists (examples below) at the turn of the 19th-20th century. There's no reason to believe them the work of Ferruccio Vitale, the landscape architect. Your F. Vitale seems to have been quite prolific, by way.

https://www.invaluable.com/artist/v...D_Bnv3mJjxC4X-wV5XaccwYXPDzK2rWJugQ3q2TUL_XaF

Debora

 

They're not going to make you rich. This pair sold for 60 AUD in 2023:

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-...italian-1875-1933-oil-on-can-120-c-7ee4e258c7

 

for me they are bought for eye-candy, not so much for investments. Although, I'm sure their minimum guaranteed liquidity value on ebay would be in the $50+ range if I was desperate to sell them "for cocaine money." (just kidding).

 

There's another of same subject by F. Vitale. Item #236349707179. Recently sold on eBay for $119 despite condition of canvas.

Debora

 

I brightened up the eBay photo to make them more comparable. They are too much alike, especially the signatures.

 

actually that ebay painting is the painting I bought. background is different in my photo due to my graphical editing of background (because photo did not pick up background

 

Oh good. That solves that bit. Also, I think, accounts for the brighter colors?

 

brighter colors...I photographed the painting with a Samsung A71 phone, by making hundreds of different macro shots of the painting, using the same strictly exact angle and distance for each shot. Then I digitally stitched the macro shots using Microsoft Image Composite Editor. Result was a massive, 100+ megabytes photo showing super-precise, microscopic detail of the painting. The high-res photo is so detailed it has the same esthetic effect as the original painting. I uploaded that to Internet Archive. My way of backing up the painting in case the building it is in burns down. Did the same with the yarn lady painting. The ebay pic is a typical crappy one-shot digital photo, with basic color and image distortions.