Our interpreter brought him to the Mess, one evening – a respectable, plump little man in a dark grey suit. He was subdued, gentle, and very polite. He did not look or behave like a famous artist at all. He might have been an insurance agent or a small-town jeweller. When we asked the interpreter to ask the artist how much he’d charge for a small portrait he became embarrassed and explained that Il Maestro was so famous that it was not a question one could put, not like that. If we cared to visit Il Maestro at his house we could see his work and perhaps make arrangements. So Il Maestro drank a whisky and smiled at us all and soon took his leave.Two of us called the next day with the interpreter. .The house was one of a row, lining the pavement. The double, doors were opened and we were taken to a room at the back. Il Maestro welcomed us, and wore a cloth cap…. His room opened on to a courtyard, with two arches against one wall, a stone staircase, and sun-drenched walls. There were a vine and some shrub. The room was very full and very orderly. There were two easels, a large wooden screen making a fifth wall, and pictures, frames, a desk packed with papers, a table of tubes of paint, a bookcase  packed, tight with books, some mouldings, some pieces of ancient pottery, and a  few chairs made it a very rich room. We looked at the pictures and saw at once that they were good. Canvases, stacked face to the wall, were produced. He gave us postcard photographs of murals and domes of churches in Rome and elsewhere which he had painted. We began to understand why the interpreter had jibbed the night before. Coffee and cognac were brought by a young nephew, and two more nephews came in. Everyone shook hands.

As we looked at his work we realised that it would be a privilege to be painted by Il Maestro, that by our standards we could not possibly afford if and that we were rather uncouth military intruders from a cold and windy island in the North Sea, whereas he, for all his cloth cap and his dull, ill-fitting clothes was in the splendid tradition of Italian art.

Then he asked, through the, interpreter, “Did il-Tenente wish his portrait to be painted?”  Il Tenente, considerably embarrassed, explained that although there was nothing he would like more as a present for his wife he realised that the work of Il Maestro was far beyond what he could possibly pay! An embarrassing ten minutes followed in which the artist pooh-poohed price and said that an offer would be sufficient. In the end Il Tenente arranged for a portrait to be painted, at a price          which was scandalously low. A promise was given not to mention the price to anyone. After more courtesies and a final round of handshaking we left.

For a week the lieutenant spent most of his off-duty hours at the studio; quiet hours sitting in an armchair while Il Maestro worked, always in his cloth cap, the muscles at the back of his jaw working hard, his shrewd eyes, partly closed, giving quick, bird-like glances at the subject and at the canvas. At the beginning of the session there would be a conversation, stilted and slow. Then, a deep silence of concentration settled in the room, broken only by the noise of the brush on canvas and rapid muttering as Il Maestro mixed paint on the palette or stepped back and looked at the work, head on one side. A nephew always brought in coffee and then stood about, a convenient object on which Il Maestro could indulge in a little temperamental complaining. Twice a friend of the lieutenants came and sat in a corner, giving a polite running commentary on the work, which in no way displeased the painter. But as the feeling of concentration developed the visitor too sat silent.

It was fascinating to watch Il Maestro; his work was sure and confident. At the end of the session he stood aside and we looked at the work, while it was explained vehemently that this was but the foundation. At the end of the week the background had been put in and the portrait began to take on a third dimension. He allowed himself to become excited. He explained that it had been difficult, but at last he was pleased; he saw what he wanted to achieve. The foundations were complete and he was happy about the picture. There had been bad periods. Now the picture was to be left for four days to dry and then he would give it life. “Was the Tenente pleased, realising, of course, that this was but the foundation?”

The Tenente was more than pleased. He-was humble and grateful, and had no words for it. He had seen the skill the concentration, the professional high seriousness which were the result of a lifetime of work. But he had seen more. He had seen, in this, unpretentious courteous and hard-working man, in his ordinary house in an ordinary street, the true Italy, unchanged by twenty years of tragic political buffoonery, by German occupation, by defeat, and by the subsequent social chaos. Il Maestro had shown him all this with his native genius his professional brilliance, his friendliness, his little     sun-drenched courtyard, his nephews, and his coffee and cognac. Indeed, Il Tenente was pleased with the picture.
David Scott Daniell.
The Manchester Guardian; Mar 29 1944