Girolamo Pieri Pecci Ballati Nerli (21 February 1860 – 24 June 1926), was an Italian-born painter who worked in Australia and New Zealand in the late 19th century, influencing the art scenes of both countries. In Australia, he is noted for influencingCharles Conder of theHeidelberg School movement, and in New Zealand, as an early teacher ofFrances Hodgkins. His portrait ofRobert Louis Stevenson in theScottish National Portrait Gallery is usually considered the most searching portrayal of the writer.

Born inSiena in Italy to an Italian aristocrat, Marchese Ferdinando Pieri Pecci Ballati Nerli, his full name was Girolamo Pieri Pecci Ballati Nerli. The fourth of six children, he was not a 'Marchese' as he was sometimes styled, or a 'Count', but a 'patrizio di Siena', a minor distinction marking the great antiquity of his family. His father married Henrietta Medwin, an Englishwoman. Her fatherThomas Medwin was a minor literary figure inByron's circle, the author ofJournal of the Conversations of Lord Byron and ofThe Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley; Medwin was a second cousin on both parents' side ofShelley.

Girolamo studied art inFlorence underAntonio Ciseri andGiovanni Muzzioli and was a younger member of the ItalianMacchiaioli school, the 'patch painters', an Italian movement anticipating Frenchimpressionism.

He migrated to Australia in 1885, first settling inMelbourne, where he shared a studio with fellow Italian Ugo Catani and the Portuguese-bornArtur Loureiro. Upon relocating toSydney in 1886, Nerli exhibited with theArt Society of New South Wales (ASNSW). He caused a sensation there later that year with his exhibition of paintings ofbacchanalian orgies, and at an 1888 show his portrait of actressMyra Kemble attracted much attention. The free brushwork and unfinished appearance of his works were as exciting to connoisseurs as the subjects were to the general public. Nerli also joined the ASNSW'sen plein air sketch club. It was likely through this club that he met the young painterCharles Conder, who was later acknowledged as having been influenced by Nerli's style. Conder subsequently became a leading member of the impressionisticHeidelberg School movement alongsideTom Roberts andArthur Streeton. The degree to which Nerli influenced the movement as a whole is a matter of contention, but his "delicacy of touch, decorative placement, and choice of subject matter" were shared by Conder and Streeton in particular, and he is known to have visited their "artists' camps" in both Melbourne and Sydney.^[1] Late in 1889 he went toDunedin in New Zealand for theNew Zealand and South Seas Exhibition where he encountered the artistAlfred Henry O'Keeffe. He went back to Australia in 1890.

In August 1892 he visitedSamoa and painted the well-known portrait ofR. L. Stevenson, now in theScottish National Portrait Gallery. A portrait in pastel done during the same visit was bought by Scribner and Sons, New York, in 1923. Stevenson wrote some humorous doggerel verse recording their encounter.

In 1893 Nerli returned to Dunedin where he set himself up as a private art teacher. 'Signor Nerli' remained in the city just over three years bringing, new vigour to the circle presided over byW.M. Hodgkins and a cosmopolitan glamour to Dunedin's second, bohemian circle of younger painters. He taughtFrances Hodgkins, inspiredO'Keeffe and reportedly had an affair withGrace Joel, a young woman artist he may also have known in Melbourne. In 1893 Nerli was elected to the council of the Otago Art Society and in 1894 set up the Otago Art Academy with J.D. Perrett and L.W. Wilson in Dunedin'sOctagon. Its life classes employing a professional nude model were so successful that the government run Dunedin School of Art had to hire Nerli for the same purpose. It seems this was the means by which painting from the nude was inaugurated at the school.

Late in 1896 Nerli left Dunedin suddenly, stayed briefly inWellington and went on toAuckland. He opened a studio there and exhibited at the Auckland Society of Arts in April 1897. He then eloped with Marie Cecilia Josephine Barron whom he married inChristchurch New Zealand, in March 1898. She was a Spinster of 23, and he said he was a Bachelor and Artist of 38; he gave his name as Girolamo Pieri Ballati Pecci Nerli, but the surname in the index was "Pecci".^[2] The couple immediately sailed for Australia settling first in Sydney and then Melbourne. Nerli and his wife returned to Europe in 1904 where the artist spent the rest of his life, struggling against declining fortunes, between London andNervi,Genoa in Italy. He died childless in Nervi on 24 June 1926.

An occasionally brilliant painter, Nerli brought something of the new influences emerging in Europe to the Australasian art scene, helping to shift the direction of Australian and New Zealand art. In Charles Conder and Frances Hodgkins he influenced those countries' most notable expatriates. A few of his works have secured him a lasting place in Australia's and New Zealand's art histories.The Sitting (1889) is worthy ofJames Tissot, and Nerli's lost work,The Ascension (c.1887) was a technical tour de force anticipating aspects of 20th-century art.^{[citation needed]} His landscapes of the Heidelberg period,Beach Scene, Black Rock andFitzroy Gardens (both c. 1889) show him combining the new objectivity which superseded romantic landscape with a lyricism worthy of the French Impressionists. However, his greatest achievements are a few penetrating portraits, that of Robert Louis Stevenson already mentioned, hisPortrait of Dr. D.M. Stuart (1894),Portrait of W.M. Hodgkins (1893) in theHocken Collections Dunedin, and hisPortrait of a Young Woman Artist (c.1889), also in the Hocken. These works capture elusive psychological states, Stevenson's illness and Stuart's nearness to death. Nerli'sPortrait of a Girl (1894?) in the collection of theDunedin Public Art Gallery is a minor masterpiece, brilliantly evoking the ambivalence of adolescence.^{[citation needed]}

Nerli is represented in the Australian National Gallery, most of the Australian state galleries and the principal public collections of New Zealand.

• Works in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

• Brown, H.G. & Keith, H. (1969 & 1988)An Introduction to New Zealand Painting 1839-1980 Auckland, NZ: David Bateman.ISBN 0-908610-81-5.
• Dunn, M. (2005)Nerli an Italian Painter in the South Pacific Auckland, NZ: Auckland University Press.ISBN 1-86940-335-5.
• Entwisle, P. (1984) William Mathew Hodgkins & his Circle Dunedin, NZ: Dunedin Public Art Gallery.ISBN 0-473-00263-9
• Entwisle, P. Dunn, M. & Collins, R. (1988)Nerli An Exhibition of Paintings & Drawings Dunedin: NZ Dunedin Public Art Gallery.ISBN 0-9597758-4-6.
• Entwisle, P.(1993)Nerli, Girolamo inThe Dictionary of New Zealand Biography Volume Two 1870-1900 Wellington, NZ: Bridget Williams Books, Department of Internal Affairs.ISBN 0-908912-49-8.

• Entry inAustralian Dictionary of Biography by Barbara Chapman
• Entry inDictionary of New Zealand Biography by Peter Entwisle
• Notes by Una Platts

[https://www.academia.edu/98255134/THE_ARTIST_GIROLAMO_NERLI_1860_1926_NOT_NEARLY_IN_CATHOLIC_ITALY_BUT_CLEARLY_IN_NEW_ZEALAND_and_OZ

• 1860 births
• 1926 deaths
• 19th-century Italian painters
• Italian male painters
• 20th-century Italian painters
• 19th-century Italian male artists
• 20th-century Italian male artists
• Italian expatriates in New Zealand
• Italian expatriates in Australia

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