Arcadian landscape with figures by Francesco Zuccarelli (1702-1788)

Painting by Francesco Zuccarelli, depicting an Arcadian landscape with figures. Oil on canvas, 62 x 97 cm.

Work accompanied by expertise from 2007 by Prof. Giancarlo Sestieri who with these words describes the work:

"..." Landscape "of delicate Arcadian intonation, hinged on the extension of a valley in a hilly area, and introduced by the horizontal flow of a stream, coming with waterfalls from a hill on the left, surmounted by a cottage. floor is a group of two women, one standing and the other sitting with a child; on the opposite bank a shepherd rules his small herd; further away the hinted figurines of a knight and behind some peasant women who have hung clothes on a rope. The composition is completed by the fifth tree, with twisted trunks on the right side, and on the opposite side of the birch trees with coppery foliage ".

The painting is a qualitative testimony of Zuccarelli, whose authorship can be deduced with palpable evidence thanks to the full confirmation of his unmistakable stylistic and pictorial character, expressed in his typical inventiveness in which one can grasp a generic inspiration from the landscape of the Venetian pre-Alps. An inspiration probably mediated by Marco Ricci, whose indirect teaching Zuccarelli had to redo in his first and decisive landscape experiences, matured in Venice where he moved in 1732. However, judging the pictorial texture more smooth than the more sparkling one of his first landscapes Venetians and the parallel firmer and more defined definition of the figures probably placed this painting in the 1740s.