A companion of the brilliant Giacomo Favretto - who was also masterfully portrayed by his friend -, Guglielmo Berti is a figure who has recently emerged from the studies (see M. Gardonio, Dalla scuola del vero al proprio lingua: Luigi Cima e gli altri , in Luigi Cima, Tra i maestri del vero (edited by A. Alban), Belluno, 2022, pp. 46-54) and stands out for his adherence to the truth on a par with his more famous peer. With Luigi Cima, Vittore Zanetti Zilla and Cesare Vianello he found himself facing the various Venetian academic competitions and participating in the most international enterprises of the time, such as Henry Pearl's illustration of Venice, together with Cima from Belluno.
Hailed as a genre painter, but more modern, he was also a skilled landscape painter capable of "very graceful and true impressions of Venice". (M. Gardonio, Dalla scuola del vero... , cit., 2022, p. 47).
Here, in tune with the previous generation, that is to say with the more meticulous treatments of Antonio Rotta, Antonio Zona or Gugliemo Stella, he gives us a street boy almost intent on opening his hand to accept an offering, after a circus act with his own monkey, rendered with a surprising realism.