Vittorio Amedeo Cignaroli (Torino 1730-1800)

Animated Landscape 18th century Oil on panel, 47cm x 58cm x 3.5 cm CIGNAROLI, Vittorio Amedeo Gaetano. - Son of the painter Scipione and Marianna Caretti, he was born in Turin around 1730. The date of birth is established on the basis of the death certificate which says he was "70 years old". A. Baudi di Vesme (Schede Vesme) clarified the confusion that arose around his name, whereby his person had previously been split into that of Vittorio Amedeo and Gaetano. According to family tradition, C. trained with his father from whom he absorbed Venetian culture, but with a different orientation. A more precious taste and Arcadian nostalgia distinguish C. from his father, with whom he collaborated; the rather cloying manners, but supported by sure professional skill, met with extraordinary success at the Savoy court and the Piedmontese aristocracy. It is precisely with Vittorio Amedeo that the Cignaroli workshop expanded greatly, welcoming quantities of help and thus making it still difficult to distinguish between the autographed production and that of the workshop. The work of C. is documented from 1749 to 1794. An exhaustive regesto is reported in Schede Vesme, which is referred to for data relating to the activity carried out in the castles of the Venaria, Moncalieri and Rivoli, of which all trace has been lost (many paintings passed onto the antiques market) following the devastation and spoliation of those royal residences. From 1749 to 1758 he is mentioned for works in the royal palace (a fire screen) and above all for a first group of paintings for the castle of the Venaria. In 1762 he was appointed prior of the Compagnia di S. Luca in Turin. The following year he obtained the first commission for the Stupinigi hunting lodge, which was to become the site of one of his most important interventions: four overdoors with Hunting views and various figures, still in place in the living room of the east apartment. The decoration, formerly in the Peiretti di Condove palace in Turin (now in a private collection in Paris), dates back to 1779. In 1771 he began the series of Deer Hunts for Stupinigi, among his best known works, intended for the squires' room in the king's apartment and still in place: a total of nine canvases, executed between 1771-72 and 1778, with extensive collaboration from assistants. In them the purposes and limits of C.'s painting are clearly revealed, aimed at keeping alive an Arcadian world that has now been surpassed and which resolves itself in the manner of a mannerist decoration. In 1778 C. became a professor at the renovated Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture of Turin. In 1782 Vittorio Amedeo III appointed him "our painter in landscapes and groves". In the royal palace, where he is mentioned for payments in 1788-89, four overdoors with views of the Castle of Moncalieri, the Monte dei Cappuccini and two unidentifiable landscapes remain in the apartment of Madama Felicita (U. Chierici-R. Amerio Tardito, Pal. Reale..., Apartment of Madama Felicita, Turin 1971, pp. 5, 9, 14). Important is the group of twenty-five paintings in the Civic Museum of Ancient Art of Turin, some of which reveal the study of the Dutch and Flemish masters of the royal collections. Of these, two are cartoons for tapestries: Peasants and a juggler who makes a fake bear dance, around 1760, and Young people having breakfast on the grass with two peasant women from the series Country scenes, translated into tapestry by F. Demignot (for other tapestries from the Turin manufactory for which C. provided the cartoons and which are kept in the Civic Museum of Turin and at the Quirinale in Rome, see M. Viale Ferrero, in Mostra del Barocco piemontese, II, Arazzi). The others are landscapes and sacred scenes, also, like the previous two, in oil on canvas, except for five landscapes in gouache on paper which stand out for their cold tones, quite unusual in Cignaroli's painting. Two other tapestries based on his designs (Landscape with two figures, Landscape with jugglers and a beggar) are in Palazzo Carignano. In the Galleria Sabauda there is a probable Self-portrait with a globe, datable to the 60s (N. Gabrielli, La Gall. Sabauda, Maestri italiani, Turin 1971, fig. 487). In Palazzo Chiablese in Turin, in the small mirror room, there remain four overdoors with Stories from the Old Testament which are considered (Griscri, in Mostra del Barocco piem., II, Pittura, p. 110) to be from the late period. Other works by C. are: four River landscapes in the castle of Agliè (not to be confused with those of Scipione), six Landscapes with hunting scenes in the villa of Carpeneto in La Loggia near Turin and numerous landscapes in private European collections. The Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest preserves two Hunting Scenes (Bull. du Musée hongrois des Beaux-Arts, 1972, n. 39, p. 100, ill. 80 s.). In 1766 he married Rosalia Ladatte, daughter of the sculptor Francesco, a painter, who also became his collaborator and died in 1792 (I. Nepote, in Schede Vesme, p. 317). One of their sons, Angelo, was a painter. C. died in Turin on February 17, 1800. Bibl.: G. Chevalley, Gliarchitetti, l'architect. e la decoraz. of the Piedmontese villas of the 18th century, Turin 1912, pp. 64, 69, 117, 142, 151; G. Delogu, Minor Ligurian, Lombard and Piedmontese painters of the 17th and 18th centuries, Venice 1931, pp. 238241; V. Moschini, Italian painting of the eighteenth century, Florence 1931, p. 35; L. Rosso, Painting and sculpture of the '700 in Turin, Turin 1934, pp. 43, 51; R. Buscaroli, Landscape painting in Italy, Bologna 1935, pp. 385 ss.; G. Lorenzetti, Italian painting of the eighteenth century, Novara 1942, p. XLI; A M. Brizio, Ilcastello del Valentino. The paintings, Turin 1949, p. 230; V. Golzio, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Turin 1950, p. 792; M. Bernardi, The Stupinigi hunting lodge, Turin 1958, plates. XI, XII, XIII, XIV; L. Mallé, The figurative arts in Piedmont, Turin 1961, pp. 393, 396 ff., 405, 428; Schede Vesme, I, Turin 1963, pp. 317-19 (with bibl.); Mostra del Barocco piemontese (catal.), Turin 1963, I, La Mostra, plate 17; II, Pittura, pp. 15 ff., 110-113, plates. 170-183; Arazzi, pp. 18 ff., plates. 25-27; III, Mobili e intagli, tab. 260; L. Mallé, Idipinti dei Museo d'arte antica, Turin 1963, pp. 40-46; A. Pedrini, Ville dei secc. XVIIe XVIII in Piedmont, Turin 1965, p. 202; Museo dell'arredamento, Stupinigi, Turin 1966, pp. 82, 88, 138, 139; A. Verdoia Oberto, V.A.C., Savona 1967 (with bibl.); L. Mallé, Stupinigi, Turin 1968, pp. 196-200, 236, 237, 446-449 (with bibl.); Gall. G Caretto, Mostra "La Pitt. in Piedmont in the 18th century." (catal.), Turin 1977, nn. 4-17 (continues to make the error of splitting the personality of the C.); Musei del Piemonte. Restored works of art... (catal.), edited by G. Romano, Turin 1978, p. 165; Cultura figur. e architett. in the States of the King of Sardinia - 1773-1861 (catal.), edited by E. Castelnuovo-M. Rosci, Turin 1980, pp. 1420 ff., s.v.; U. Thieme-F. Becker, Künstlerlexikon, VI, pp.587, s. De TRECCANI.IT 
Measures H x L x P 47 cm x 58 cm x 3,5 cm