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The co-founders of the Scuola of Via Cavour, Raphael and Mafai
A window on Antonietta Mafai at home
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A friendly verbal portrait of an artist with no birthday and no native city. Co-founder of the Scuola di via Cavour Antonietta Raphael was considered "an outsider" who brought exotic flair to Rome's painterly circles, in the 1920s and 1930s. Albeit from her later years, the following quote provides a window onto her character. "She lived in a little house that was very untidy, and its garden was brimming with flowers. Raphael was already quite elderly when we met, and she came out to greet us, when we arrived. She was radiant, with her curious Italian. She wore strange clothes and very bright purple stockings," recounts Daniela Ferraia, friend to the artist's adult daughter Giulia Mafai. "Seeing her was like stepping into one of her paintings. She was born in Lithuania and had never known her birthplace or birthdate for certain. As was the case with many Russian immigrants in Europe, her archival documents had been destroyed. She would play around with her age with an air of fun civetteria. She was the daughter of a rabbi and had brought pure colors with her from her native country, as well as the lightness and the irreale fantasy-feel of Chagall's paintings."