Figure 1.-- This is a portrait of the Senigaglia family painted by Giuseppe Tominz. The family (also spelled Sinigaglia) is a Italian Jewish family with roots going back to the Adriatic town of Senigallia where a Jewish community was established during the Roman Empire. There were family connections in Modena, Turin, and of course Rome. The family was involved in scholarship, arts, industry, and natioamlist resistance movements. Tominiz was born into a ethnic Slovenia family and was a major portartist in Austrian controlled Italy and the Balkans during the first half of the 19th century. He recorded the fashions of the upper bourgeoisie in great deatail. Notice the child at the left. The individuals are not identified, but we suspect the child is a boy wearing a blue belted tunic. The portrait was probably painted in the 1840s.

Giuseppe Tominz was also known as Jožef Tominc. He was born in Gorizia (1790). Gorizia is a town in the autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia of northeast Italy. It is located at the foot of the Julian Alps, bordering modern Slovenia. The family was ethnic Slovenes. He studied at Domenico Conti's painting school (until 1818). There were study trips to Venice and Vienna. He moved to Trieste (1820s). He was an Italian-Slovene painter active in the Austrian Littoral, meaning the eastern Adriatic coast. Austria was an empire in the 19th century. And that empire included areas of northern Italy and the Balkans (Slovenia, Croatia, and ultimately Bosnia-Herzegovina). He worked primarily in the cultural world of the upper bourgeoisie in the Austrian Illyrian (Balkan) provinces Kingdom. He is classified as the a Romantic and was one of the most prominent and prolific portraitists of the Biedermeier era as well as some religious paintings. He was primarily known for his realistic portraits. His work was somewhat uneven, but there are many individual and family portraits, mostly from the first half of the 19th century. They are a wonderful source of fashion information, both clothing and hair styles, much of it before photography became important. A good examole is the portrait of the well-to-do Jesish family here -- the Senigallia family (figurev1) It was painted at mid-century (probably the (1840s). 1840s). Tominz first returned to Gorizia, at first for a visit (1855). He finally settled at his country house in Gradiscutta. He developed an eye disease which prevented from doing portraits. His final woks were a few religious paintins for churches around Gradiscutta.

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Created: 4:36 PM 2/15/2026
Last updated: 4:36 PM 2/15/2026