Picturesque scene of a family ride in gondola on a canal in Venice.
Unlike the Eighteenth-century painters who portray Venice in a very architectural way with the genre of the « veduta » (based on the perspective representation of an urban landscape), Giacomo Mantegazza uses the city as a simple background for his genre scenes, as he did many times for gallant themes.
His fine and precise touch gives a great expressiveness to his models, usually placed at the center of very detailed compositions.
Born in Saronno in 1853 and dead in Cernobbio in 1920, Giacomo Mantegazza is a artist known for his many portaits and genre scenes. Student of Giuseppe Bertini, renowned for his frescoes, in the Brera Academy, he later specialized in Orientalist scenes, with representations of gypsies and harems.
– Dictionnaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs, Bénézit, éd. Gründ, 1976, vol. IX, p.159.
– Ottocento, Catalogo dell’Arte Italiana dell’Ottocento – n°31, Editoriale Giorgio Mondadori, Edizioni dell’Ottocento, 2002, p.295.