Milão - Itália
Gallerie d'Italia Piazza Scala Milão
OST - 89x115 - 1861/1862
This painting was formerly in the Milanese
collection of Francesco Pasquinelli who subsequently passed it on to his son
Emilio. It is a different version of The Bulletin of 14 July 1859 (whereabouts unknown), shown
at the Esposizione di Belle Arti dell’Accademia di Brera in 1860 and reworked
on a larger canvas, The Bulletin of 14 July 1859 Announcing the
Peace of Villafranca (Milan, Soprintendenza al Patrimonio
Architettonico e Paesaggistico, in storage at the Museo del Risorgimento,
exhibited in Milan in 1862. On this occasion the painting was purchased by
Vittorio Emanuele II who nominated Induno Knight of Saints Maurice and Lazarus.
The work in the Cariplo Collection reprises
the setting and some figures in the 1860 painting, eliminating some trees and
houses in the background, so that Milan cathedral can be seen on the horizon,
as in the work of 1862. The couple with a little girl in the foreground
replaces the figure of the elderly Napoleonic volunteer seated in the centre,
but the thrust of the man being held back by the woman evokes the same feeling
of anger at being betrayed that animates each of the works cited. Here Induno
depicts a crucial moment in the Risorgimento:
the setting is a tavern on the outskirts of Milan where a group of men have
just received a despatch bearing the text of the armistice signed at
Villafranca on 6 July 1859 between France, allied to Piedmont, and Austria.
This brought an end to the second Italian war of independence permitting the
annexation of Lombardy to the Kingdom of Savoy through the agency of France,
though Veneto remained in the Austrian Empire. Signed unilaterally by Napoleon
III, the armistice was received with great indignation in Italy, especially by
those who like Induno had personally taken part in the anti-Austrian uprisings
and now saw their hopes of national unity dashed. Probably inspired by a work
by the English painter David Wilkie, Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Gazette of the Battle of Waterloo (London,
Victoria & Albert Museum), which had become well known thanks to the
reproductions in periodicals, Induno narrates the event by rejecting the
iconography of history
painting and chooses a suburban setting with figures characterised
by the immediacy of their gestures, which make them very human. Unlike the
canvases for the Milanese exhibitions, the brushwork is executed rapidly and
becomes almost sketchy in the group of musicians on the right and the female
figure in the doorway of the tavern, rendering the painting lively and
powerfully expressive.
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