Jacopo Robusti, detto il Tintoretto (Venezia 1518 - 1594), Susanna. Oil on panel, 27 x 38 cm. Courtesy Antonacci Lapiccirella Fine Art

Provenance: Venezia, collezione privata.

Exhibited: Cologne , Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, „TINTORETTO – A star was born“ 2017-18;
Paris, Musée du Luxembourg “ Le Tintoret – Naissance d’un génie “ (The Young Tintoretto) March -June 2018.

Literature: Damerini 1931, p.n.n; Rossi 1977, pp. 84-85, fig. 47; Rossi, in Pallucchini, Rossi 1982, I, pp. 138-139 n. 55, II, p. 320itions:, fig. 73.

Antonio Canova (Possagno 1757 – Venice 1822), Self-portrait of Giorgione. Oil on wood, 72.5 x 64 cm. Carved and gilded wooden frame, Rome 1792. Courtesy Antonacci Lapiccirella Fine Art

Note: The sensational rediscovery of the so-called Self-portrait of Giorgione marks a significant addition to our knowledge of the great sculptor Canova's work as a painter. The oil painting on wood (72.5 x 64 cm) is still housed in its magnificent original carved and gilded frame made in Rome, which we know to have been commissioned by Roman Senator Prince Abbondio Rezzonico, the young sculptor's great protector and patron who was the picture's first owner. Rezzonico, nephew to Pope Clement XIII, commissioned Canova to carve his uncle's tomb in St. Peter's Basilica, a monumental undertaking which contributed enormously to the definitive establishment of the sculptor's renown. Rezzonico was also an accomplice in the bizarre story of the trick that Canova played on the greatest artists then present in Rome – people of the calibre of Angelica Kauffman, Gavin Hamilton, Antonio Cavallucci, Giuseppe Cades, Giovanni Volpato and others, who were invited to dine at the Senator's home and shown this painting, which was palmed off as an original Self-portrait of Giorgione. They all adored it, thanks also to the mastery with which it had been painted, and acclaimed it to a man as an authentic work by the Venetian 16th century painter. 
The truth of the matter was that Canova himself had skilfully painted the portrait on a 16th century panel painting of the Holy Family (the image of which has been traced through reflectography and infrared inspection), taking as his model a portrait of Giorgione from Carlo Ridolfi's Le meraviglie dell'arte published in Venice in 1648. By 1792, when the famous dinner was held, Canova had already tried his hand at painting in the Venetian Renaissance style, producing, for example, a Venus with a Mirror which had also been mistaken for an authentic 16th century work. 
The event is narrated by all the most authoritative sources for Canova's life, in particular in the first monograph devoted to him by Fausto Tadini and in the two biographies penned by his secretarius Melchiorre Missirini and by the sculptor Antonio D'Este, who ran his workshop in Rome. Meticulous examination of these reliable sources has allowed Canova authority Fernando Mazzocca to confirm this major discovery and to reconstruct, in the catalogue published for TEFAF, all the phases of this fascinating and exemplary story pointing up Canova's love of the glorious tradition of Venetian painting, in which he also sought inspiration for his sculpture.

Ippolito Caffi (Belluno 1809 – Battle of Lissa 1866), The Grand Canal in Venice with Santa Maria della Salute, c. 1842. Oil on canvas, 47 x 60.9 cm. Signed lower right: CAFFI. Courtesy Antonacci Lapiccirella Fine Art

 Bibliography: Caffi I., Lezioni di prospettiva pratica, Santarelli, Rome 1854; 
Ippolito Caffi in “Gazzetta di Venezia”, 30 October 1866;
Mikelli V., Ippolito Caffi. Venezia degli Italiani, in “Strenna veneziana”, Venice 1867;
Avon Caffi G., Un pittore soldato del Risorgimento, in “Ardita”, March 1921. 
Mancini E., Lettere inedite di Ippolito Caffi, in “Annuario 1925/26 del R. Istituto Magistrale Giustina Renier”, Belluno 1925-6; 
Avon Caffi G., Il pittore Ippolito Caffi, da "Rivista di Venezia", June 1931.
Avon Caffi G., Il pittore Ippolito Caffi, in “Rivista Venezia”, June 1931, pp. 195-203. 
Damerini G., Un pittore a Venezia perito a Lissa, in “Gazzetta del Popolo”, 23 August 1931. 
De Grassi M., Ippolito Caffi, in “Gazzetta di Venezia”, 14 May 1942;
Somaré E. (curated by), Ippolito Caffi, exhibition catalogue, Modena 1949; 
Bianchi, E., Sulle Quattro prospettive esposte dal ca. Ippolito Caffi in queste Sale del Ridotto, in Gazzetta Ufficiale di Venezia”, 13 May 1963; 
Comemo-Gerstenbrand L., Ippolito Caffi, Venice 1966;
Fiocco G., Un maestro solitario: Ippolito Caffi, in “Il Gazzettino”, 29 July 1966;
Avon Caffi G., Ippolito Caffi: 1809-1866, Amicucci, Padua 1967 
Perocco G (curated by), Ippolito Caffi, exhibition catalogue, (Venice 1966), Fabbri, Milan 1967 
Pittaluga M., Il pittore Ippolito Caffi, Neri Pozza Editore, Vicenza 1971
Masciotta M., Pittaluga M., Ippolito Caffi, Vicenza 1971, in “Antichità Viva”, 1, 1972, pp. 67-68; 
Perocco G., (curated by), Ippolito Caffi 1809 – 1866: raccolta di 154 dipinti, exhibition catalogue, Marsilio Editore, Venice 1979 
De Biasi M., Giuseppe Avon Caffi, in “Ateneo Veneto”, CLXXI, 22, 1-2, 1984, pp. 325-326;
Scotton F., Ippolito Caffi, Viaggio in Oriente 1843 – 1844, exhibition catalogue (3 July – 15 September 1988; Comune di Venezia, Assessorato alla Cultura, Mestre, Istituto di Cultura “S. Maria delle Grazie”), Arsenale Editrice, Venice 1988; 
Magnani F., see entry for Caffi Ippolito in La pittura…, 1990, pp. 723-724; 
Romanelli G.D. (curated by) Caffi. Luci del Mediterraneo, Belluno, Palazzo Crepadona 1 October 2005 - 22 January 2006; Rome, Palazzo Braschi 15 February - 2 May 2006
Scarpa, A., Ippolito Caffi: dipinti di viaggio tra Italia e Oriente; Venice, Marsilio, 2015 
Peretti F., Ippolito Caffi, De Luca editori d’arte, Rome 2016 
Scarpa A., Ippolito Caffi. Tra Venezia e Oriente (1809 - 1866 : la collezione dei musei civici di Venezia), exhibition catalogue (28 May – 20 November 2016, Museo Correr, Venezia), Marsilio editore, Venice 2016.

Note: The imposing dome of Santa Maria della Salute emerges from a purplish fog that is gradually lifting, dissolving in the early morning sunshine as the sun timidly casts its first rays on the buildings and waters of the Grand Canal. The warm light of dawn spreads out, chasing away the dark, while a clear and limpid blue sky begins to form in the distance. The first rays of the sun strike the canal with its host of boats and figures and the water embraces them, allowing itself to be pierced by them and reflecting them as it changes its colour from murky grey into a sharp, bright green. This is the wonderful scene depicted in The Grand Canal in Venice with Santa Maria della Salute, a hitherto unpublished painting which, in terms of its painterly quality, of its skilled, emotional depiction of its detail and its figures, and of its flowing brushwork embellished by rapid, airy strokes and light velature, is unquestionably one of the most significant and poetic works in Ippolito Caffi's entire output on a Venetian theme. 

The careful distribution of colour coupled with the masterly handling of shadow and backlight in the foreground enhance the luminosity of the background and draw the eye into the early light of dawn and into those wonderful reflections on the water. And it is that same sharp yet timid light that strikes the mast of a crewless ship from the side, revealing its Moorish windows, warming the coloured stone of the warm yellow and pink palazzi, lending substance to the bluish sun blinds on their façades and, last but not least, surprising the city's early-risers. A gondolier crosses the Grand Canal in the distance, while men seem to be moving about on a group of boats that appear to have been tied together, laden with goods, and elegant gentlemen sporting top hats and holding walking sticks are waiting for someone or something on the quayside.

This picture can take pride of place among the works that Caffi painted between 1840 and 1850, in which he explores the "repertoire of most varied subjects: fog in cities, eclipses, snowfalls, fireworks, and festivities by night and by day" (Pittaluga 1971, p.47) that served to present a different approach to the Venetian veduta. In this work, the composition and structure of the scene plunge us without hesitation into the cycle of paintings closest to ours in terms both of its theme and of its artistic character, namely the series of Views of the Grand Canal in the snow which are unanimously held to rank amongst his masterpieces and in which Caffi alone has succeeded in the masterly rendering in paint of a sense of intense participation in the natural event, of attention to atmosphere, of the modulation of light, of the sense of silence, and of the suspended mood that envelops the scene and the figures depicted. 
Numerous versions are known of his Views of the Grand Canal in the snow (see the bibliography below), but we shall only mention here that they were painted throughout the 1840s, thus revealing the extent to which Caffi felt at home with his subject matter, that all the versions are of the highest quality, and that the first series can identified as the one dated 1841 and now in the Museo di Belluno. It is very difficult to establish the exact chronological sequence of our versions, but we should stress that even though the perspective of the composition may appear to be the same in the various versions, the thing that changes, apart from the positions of the boats and the figures, is the way in which the scenes are lit, and also the "viewpoint", which draws in or moves out like a camera zooming in on, or away from, its subject. And the aspect that is characteristic of the Belluno painting is precisely this smoky, foggy sky in movement, this attention on the "close-up" approach to the scene's composition and to the daily life being played out in it. 
The atmosphere, the perspective, the position of the boats and the figures, the privileged viewpoint and the church of Santa Maria della Salute in the background, closing the scene with the panache of a stage set, all suggest that this previously unpublished work belongs precisely to this period, allowing us to argue with a fair degree of conviction that the painting may be close in date to that in Belluno, thus falling somewhere between 1842 and 1845.

Alfred Ekstam (Mangskog 1878 –1935), Eve of summer after storm, 1911. Oil on canvas, 70 x 87 cm. Signed and dated: Alfred Ekstam 1911. Courtesy Antonacci Lapiccirella Fine Art

The painter and craftsman Alfred Ekstam was born in 1878, in a tiny village, called Mangskog, situated in the immensely scenic province of Värmland, just in the middle of Sweden. The region is well known for being the native home of the illustrious novelist Selma Lagerlof, who in 1909 became the first woman and also the first Swedish writer to win the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature. A peripheral, rural part of the country, bordering Norway, characterised by lush forests that seem to go on forever, interrupted only by innumerable lakes, small open valleys and blueing mountains.

In the same way as the literary culture (the case of Lagerlof) of that specific period in Värmland, enjoyed a particolary symbiotic relationship with the mystic of the nature, so did also the visual arts. In fact here, near to Arvika, the second-generation of Swedish National Romantics formed the Rackstad colony, around the turn of the century, at the very shore of the beautiful Lake Racken, in the midst of the wilderness. The artists that gathered here shared a need for solitude and peace, cultivating a cooperative lifestyle, influenced by the British Arts and Crafts movements utopian, social ideas . The founders were the artist couple Gustaf Fjaestad (1868-1948) and Maja Fjaestad (1873-1961). Gustaf Fjaestad is today considered the foremost interpreter of the Swedish winter landscape. A pupil of wildlife painter Bruno Liljefors (1860-1939) and former assistent of the nationally loved icon Carl Larsson (1853-1919). 
Ekstam himself joined the colony after attending to the Stockholm Technical School. The intense life in the capital of Sweden was not for Ekstam, who's identity was too strongly tied to the nature and to the calm of his homeland. In the major part of his life, he worked as a craftsman and a furniture decorator. Highly appreciated by his employers, the Eriksson Brothers Workshop, and therefore soon promoted to become the respected chief decorative painter of the company. His interest for the simple things assumed over time more sophisticated expressions through the painting lessons given to him by Gustaf Fjaestad, Fritz Lindström and the immensely talented Bror Lindh. Another painter that came to influence the shaping of his personal stylistic approach was the internationally awarded Otto Hesselbom (1848-1913). It was after meeting the former that he turned to a Synthesist notion of decorative harmony, focusing his efforts on depicting the local, treasured landscape in a highly decorative manner. Driven by romantic nationalism and aiming to visualise the profoundly mystical sense of his life in the deep forests of Värmland. Although traces and influences of his masters stylistic manners are easily recognisable in Ekstams work, he also developed a strongly personal artistic language, with a strong pointillistic quality. Actually, his production was very limited, since he proceeded extremely slowly, taking amounts of time in completing every work. To note, at the the very first exhibition of his works, in the city hall in Arvika in 1919, as very rarely happens to a debuting artist, all of the paintings in the gallery were sold within a week. A fenomenal success! As said, the artist was strongly anchored with his native place. Consequently the greatest part of his motifs were actually painted in and around Mangskog, where he lived, worked and died at the age of 57, falling of his bicycle on the way to attend an art exhibition.

The present work, is a rare, although representative work by Ekstam, that falls neatly within the artist´s oeuvre. A powerful emotional panoramic landscape, devoid from human presence, but profoundly soulful. The unspoilt forest in the background where, as known, the national Swedish psyche draws its most profound roots. The evening light behind the blueing hills expands violently outwards the universe, in hues of intense carminite red and toxic blu, resembling the visual effect of a volcanic eruption. The same glittering effect sparks over the small lake surface. In the foreground tiny, delicate birches, Swedens national symbol tree, almost seem to tremble in front of the spectacular scenery. The bold approach all together creates a magic radiance, not so peaceful at all! Ones thoughts can’t but go to Edward Munchs tumultuous red skies, which a famous theory actually sustains were inspired by a real volcanic sunset: that after the Krakatau eruption in 1883… 
In contemplating the painting nearby, one can’t but admire Alfred Ekstam's slow technical approach, patiently placing dot by dot in a mosaic-like structure. The French post-impressionist influence, (mainly with George Seurat in thought) in this local motive is certainly evident and present. How long it took for the artist to create this outstanding equilibrium between arts and crafts on the canvas line is not known. Definitely a strongly nationalist Swedish representation, but an irruptive one that reaches courageously toward formidable abstract and modern tendencies. Away from the more traditionally classical approach of his master Gustaf Fjaestad. 
The splendid result could be compared to a precious, unique gem, with possible intrinsic magical and spiritual properties. To treasure and keep safe.

Antonacci Lapiccirella Fine Art at London Art Week, Fri 29 June - Fri 6 July 2018