Giovanni Battista Cimaroli
Wooded Landscape with Riders
Artist
Giovanni Battista Cimaroli
( Salo, 1687 – Venice, 1757 )
Details
Oil on canvas 46.2×56 cm
Ehibition
L’Arte nella Pittura, exhibitioncatalogue, Maison d’Art Gallery, Monte-Carlo 2001, no. 19. DaCataletto a Zuccarelli, il paesaggio veneto del Settecento, exhibition catalogue, by Annalisa Del nerie Dario Succi, Villa Manin di Passariano (Udine), 8 August–16 September 2003, no. 46.; From Lightto Enlightenment, Exhibition in the Shanghai Art Museum, China, 12-17 November 2005; Nel segnodella Serenissima. Capolavori dell’arte veneta dal XIV al XVIII secolo, Museo Diocesano di Arte Sacra,Chioggia, Italia, 18 March–9 April, 2006.
Literature
Ugo Ruggeri, in L’Arte nella Pittura, exhibition catalogue, Maison d’Art Gallery, Monte-Carlo, 2001,pp. 85-87, color illus. p. 87, no. 19; Dario Succi, in da Cataletto a Zuccarelli, il paesaggio veneto delSettecento, exhibition catalogue, by Annalisa Del neri e Dario Succi, Villa Manin di Passariano (Udine),8 August–16 September 2003, pp. 282–283, color illus. p. 283, no. 46; To be included in theforthcoming monograph on the artist by Professor Ugo Ruggeri; From Light to Enlightenment,Exhibition catalogue, Shanghai Art Museum, 2005, N 24, pp. 94-96, 146-147; Cristina Quagliotti, inNel segno della Serenissima. Capolavori dell’arte veneta dal XIV al XVIII secolo, catalog by MariaCristina Chiusa, Museo Diocesano di Arte Sacra, Chioggia, 18 March–9 April, 2006, p.67-69, ill. p. 37.This painting is one of the most significant examples of Cimaroli’s mature work, and can beimmediately compared stylistically with a group of similar landscape pictures by the artist. Amongthese, especially, is the Wooded Landscape with Riders and Peasants formerly in the Ferrariocollection in Milan, published by Antonio Morassi in his initial essay on Cimaroli (1), which shares withthe present painting a broad landscape composition interrupted centrally by largetrees in theforeground and the presence of a lakeside village on the left. The figure types of the mountedgentlemen are also identical, in particular the leading rider, based on the same model as hiscounterpart in the Ferrario Landscape.Further elements proving Cimaroli’s authorship–if proof were needed–appear in similar paintingssuch as the Arcadian Landscape with a Small Bridge in the Cini Collection, Venice (2), and, amongnumerous possible parallels, the Landscape with Figures in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin, thereattributed to Zuccarelli but given to Cimaroli by the present writer (3), and two other Landscapes ina British private collection, also presented in the same publication (4), in which the “macchiette”, orpatches of color that enliven the composition were executed by Francesco Fontebasso.
This Landscape is a typical creation of the artist’s maturity, and displays formal qualities that aredistinct from those of other, presumably earlier works, such as the oval Landscapes with Hermits nowin the Royal Collections at Windsor, formerly owned by Consul Joseph Smith, in which RodolfoPallucchini (5) observed connections with Magnasco and Marco Ricci that are quite absent from thepresent picture.
1-A. Morassi, “Saggio su Giambattista Cimaroli collaboratore del Canaletto”, Arte Veneta, XXVI,1972, fig. 239.
2-Morassi, art. cit., fig. 234.
3-U. Ruggeri, “Nuove opere di Giovan Battista Cimaroli e del suo maestro Antonio Aureggio”, ArteDocumento, 13, 1999, p. 273, fig. 5.
4-Ruggeri, art. cit., pp. 274-275, figs. 6-7.5-R. Pallucchini, La pittura nel Veneto. Il Settecento, vol. II, Milan, 1996, p. 295.
