GIUSEPPE RAGGIO

Oil painting on thick cardboard depicting a study of two buffalo heads. Signed on the bottom right G. Raggio Roma. On the back, a label with possible references to an exhibition. Beautiful guillochè frame in ebonized wood. The dimensions are: 64 x 47 including the frame, 39.5 x 23 the painting. Giuseppe Raggio (Chiavari, May 24, 1823 – Rome, October 21, 1916) was an Italian painter. Born in Chiavari, to Nicolò and Maria Sanguineti, he studied at the Nautical Institute and obtained a Captain's license for long voyages. He soon abandoned his career as a Naval officer and exhibited his first pictorial works in Genoa. He moved to Florence to attend courses at the Academy of Fine Arts. Initially interested in religious themes, influenced by the Aretine painter Pietro Benvenuti, he was then influenced by the Macchiaioli, especially Giovanni Fattori, and adhered to his project of renewing painting, in a verist key. The Roman period In 1848 he moved to Rome and still painted devotional works, such as the Holy Family and the Samaritan, which were exhibited at the Promotrice of Genoa in the years 1854, 1860, 1861. In Rome he was also interested in landscape painting, taken from life. He represented the Roman countryside: a grandiose scenery, of beauty and fatigue, of misery and desolation, but with moments of symbiosis between man and nature, with peasants at work, herds of buffaloes, cowboys on horseback. Giuseppe Raggio visited the Pontine marshes and the Grosseto area, also becoming passionate about social themes and fascinated by the solitude of the Roman countryside. He was a friend of Nino Costa who was linked to identical themes, and remained enchanted by Costa's innovative artistic ideas which called for a new direction in art, based on true feeling and true portraying and far from the Academies. Raggio interpreted his subjects with realism and intensity, qualities of an animalist painter. In 1860 he painted Buffaloes, a painting kept at Palazzo Pitti, in Florence, and at the Dublin Exhibition of 1865 he presented a Roman Countryside. In Genoa he exhibited in 1871, at the Promotrice of Fine Arts, Cart with buffaloes carrying a piece of travertine, the first of a series of paintings on the same subject. In 1872, at the Roman exhibition at Casina Valadier, on the Pincio, he admired the works of Enrico Coleman. At the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Milan, in 1885, he exhibited Horses frightened by a thunderstorm, Buffalo in the swamp and La mal’aria. He participated in the exhibition of 1895-1896, to celebrate twenty-five years of Rome as the capital. In arte libertas and the XXV of the Roman countryside In 1890 he was among the founders of the artists' association In arte libertas, conceived by Nino Costa, and in 1904 he joined the group of the XXV of the Roman countryside. With the In arte libertas association he presented a Transport of a block of travertine with buffaloes, now at the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science, in Milan. He took part in the Venice Biennials of 1899 and 1903; at the International Exhibition of Milan in 1906 and at the Exhibition of Fine Arts, part of the national exhibition for the fiftieth anniversary of the Unification of Italy - which was held in 1911 in Valle Giulia - with Misery and friendship, In the Malaria and Buffaloes at work. The painting Amor materno, which represents a group of foals huddled around their mother, pleased Queen Elena so much that she bought it. Together with the painting Oxen with the plowman it is now located in the art gallery of the Quirinale. In the Courtship in the Roman Countryside Raggio painted a bull resting his head on the rump of a white cow. Poor and lonely, in a perennial struggle to defend his independence. In 1870 he was appointed Academic of Merit of the Ligustica (Genoa); in 1901 he was elected to the Academy of San Luca - to which he donated the painting A Maccarese - and in 1911 he became a Corresponding Member of the Economic Society of Chiavari. He organized a personal exhibition in Rome in 1912. Giuseppe Raggio died in complete isolation, at 93 years of age. His works are present in museums in Genoa-Nervi, Rome, Florence and Milan and at the Academy of San Luca. The Art Gallery of the Economic Society of Chiavari owns 14 oil sketches and 21 drawings. A regular certificate of authenticity with photo is issued. We guarantee a response to your emails within 24 hours REGISTERED IN THE REGISTER OF EXPERTS AND CTU AT THE COURT OF LA SPEZIA