Domenico Facchinetti, known as Domenichini (Venice 1675 - 1744) "Piedmont landscape with classical architecture and figures", oil on canvas, cm 27x34.
Authentication by Prof. Dario Succi.
The painting described above, whose image is reproduced in the photograph attached to this study sheet, is the work of Domenico Facchinetti, known as Domenichini, born in Venice in 1675 and died there in 1744. The artist was known in the past under the pseudonym of Landscape Painter of Ca' Rezzonico, because he was the author of four paintings belonging to the Civic Museum Correr in Venice (bearing inventory numbers 1846, 1847, 1848 and 1849) and exhibited in the Museum of 18th Century Venetian Art in Ca' Rezzonico. For this reason, the author of the paintings has also been called Master of the Correr Landscapes (but it would be more correct to call him Landscape Painter of Palazzo Carminati, which is the Venetian palace near the church of San Stae from which they come).
The four landscapes have been reproduced by Terisio Pignatti in the catalogue, Museo Correr di Venezia.
Paints of the 17th and 18th century (Venice 1960, pp. 311-313), and described as follows: "Despite the singularly determined character of his language, this painter remains hidden under anonymity. He evidently belongs to the ranks of Marco Ricci's followers, and he is recognized for the clearly scenographic layout, with successive wings and for the rich, luminous color, almost dazzled by the backgrounds, beaten by a dazzling light".
Egidio Martini, in the volume La pittura del Settecento Veneto (Udine 1982, p. 536, note 286), dwelt on this artist, proposing to call him, while waiting for a signed or documented work of his to re-emerge, Master of the Azure Mountains, because often in his canvases (as in the one studied here) the horizon is closed by celestial mountains: "Such landscapes, often enriched by arches and architectures in the style of Marieschi, are distinguished above all by the azure tones of the distant mountains and by the yellows and reds of the plants and foregrounds". Another characteristic consists of the taste for the resumption of back-lit architectures with strong chiaroscuro effects.
A further proposal, completely unreliable, to identify the anonymous master with the painter
Andrea Urbani (Venice 1711-Padua 1798) was advanced by Clauco Benito Tozzo in his monograph Andrea Urbani (Vicenza 1972, pp. 69-70, figs. 183-184).
The progress of studies in recent decades has brought to light with increasingly defined outlines above all the figure of Apollonio Facchinetti, son of Domenico and also nicknamed Domenichini, initially conventionally indicated as Master of the Langmatt Foundation. I devoted an extensive study to this painter, in evident close connection with the art of Michele Marieschi, in my volume Michele Marieschi. Complete work (Pordenone 2016, pp. 90-97).
Having made this necessary premise, I believe that the Master of the Azure Mountains or of the Correr Landscapes can be identified as Domenico Facchinetti, known as Domenichini, born in Venice in 1679 and died there on 31 July 1744 at the age of seventy-five. Linked to the activity of the scenographer Lorenzo Domenichini (from which the nickname derived) who in 1696 worked for the San Cassiano theatre and in 1698 for the Grimani theatre in Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Domenico appears for the first time in 1709 when he rents an apartment in calle del traghetto in San Simeon Piccolo; in 1710 he is described among the matriculated painters; In the same year, in an inventory dated 23 November 1710, he appears as an estimator of the movable property belonging to Gerolamo Brunetti, which includes as many as twenty-eight "countries" of his own. In 1712 he is included in the list of painters subject to the tansa called taglione and on 9 October of the same year he remarries Nicolosa Borgoloro; in 1719 he is fined by the College of painters for two and a half lire; in 1736 he owes 24 lire for unpaid taxes. He died, as we have seen, on 31 July
1744.
Domenico Facchinetti had three painter sons: Apollonio (1715-1757) who at present is the best known and studied; Pietro Antonio (1699-1743) of whom no work attributable with certainty is known; Iseppo (1717-before 1767) who was mainly a vedutist.
The painting considered here, datable to the thirties of the eighteenth century, summarizes all the characteristics of the art of Domenico Facchinetti ditto Domenichini: the scenographic setting with architectural backdrops with classical monuments in the style of Marco Ricci taken in backlight; the delicate bluish tones of the mountains in the distance; the yellow of the flowers in the foreground; the synthetically delineated figures that enliven the scene.
Dario Succi