This Italian-born portraitist and painter of historical genre pieces began his training in Venice in 1842. In 1848 he joined his brother Eugène in Brussels, after a short stay in Paris. His teacher in Brussels, the famous Belgian history painter Louis Gallait, had a major formative influence on his work. From 1857 to 1868 dell’Acqua exhibited historical compositions in the Netherlands, Belgium and Paris, and was commissioned by Archduke Maximillian to execute paintings for the Palais Miramar. Dell’Acqua was also a creditable watercolorist, and in 1860 he helped found the Belgian Société des Aquarellistes.

Misère et Arrogance, the title under which this vivid watercolor was auctioned in 1858, identifies it as an allegorical composition on the misery of the poor contrasted with the arrogance of the rich. A well-dressed young man (a student, judging by his cap) loftily ignores a beggar woman and her two children as he lounges in a doorway smoking his pipe. Marchi, discussing this drawing of 1853 in her oeuvre catalogue, refers to the undated sheet entitled Misery and Compassion in Brussels. There, instead of arrogance, we see charity in the shape of a young man with a violin giving alms to a blind musician. The theme, dimensions and manner of the Brussels work suggest that it may have been a pendant to the watercolor in the Amsterdams Historisch Museum. A dog also appears in both sheets, in one at the feet of the well-to-do man, and in the other as the musician’s companion. These carefully executed watercolors appear to be finished works of art, and not preliminary studies for versions in another medium such as oils. It has been suggested that the moralistic scenes may have been intended as illustrations for a children’s book.

The early provenance of the Amsterdam watercolor is uncertain. It presumably came into Fodor’s possession at the 1858 sale in Brussels. A copy of the auction catalogue lists the buyer as Hollander, and it is known from another catalogue entry that Lamme was acting for Fodor at the sale. On the reverse of the drawing is the name of the Brussels art dealer, B. van der Kolk, which also appears on other sheets in the Fodor collection. The auction contained no fewer than seven watercolors by Dell’Acqua, and the catalogue records that two were bought by Van der Kolk, three by Hollander, and one by Lamme. The prices ranged from 140 to 275 francs, the latter being paid for this watercolor.