Vittorio Amedeo Cignaroli (Torino 1730 - 1800)

Vittorio Amedeo Cignaroli (Turin 1730-1800) Animated landscape with a view of the Monte dei Cappuccini with the old lead dome Animated landscape with waterfall 18th century Oil on canvas, 98 x 92 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 had arisen 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 the Venetian culture, but with a different orientation. A more affected taste and Arcadian nostalgias distinguish C. from his father, of whom he was a collaborator; the somewhat cloying manners, but supported by sure skill of the trade, met with extraordinary success at the Savoy court and the Piedmontese aristocracy. It is precisely with Vittorio Amedeo that the Cignaroli workshop expanded considerably, welcoming quantities of help and thus making it still difficult to distinguish between autograph and workshop production. The work of C. is documented from 1749 to 1794. An exhaustive register is reported in Schede Vesme, which is referred to for data relating to the activity carried out in the castles of Venaria, Moncalieri and Rivoli, of which all trace has been lost (many paintings passed on 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 firescreen) and especially for a first group of paintings for the castle of 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 eastern apartment. Of 1779 is the decoration, already in Palazzo Peiretti di Condove in Turin (now in a private collection in Paris). In 1771 he began the series of Stag Hunts for Stupinigi, among his best known works, intended for the hall of squires in the king's apartment and still in place: it is a total of nine canvases, executed between 1771-72 and 1778, with large collaboration of helpers. In them the purposes and limits of C.'s painting are clearly revealed, aimed at keeping alive an Arcadian world now overcome and which is resolved in the ways of a mannered decoration. In 1778 C. became professor in the renovated Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture of Turin. In 1782 Vittorio Amedeo III appointed him "our painter in landscapes and woodlands". 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 Madama Felicita's apartment (U. Chierici-R. Amerio Tardito, Pal. reale..., Appartamento di Madama Felicita, Turin 1971, pp. 5, 9, 14). Important is the group of twenty-five paintings from the Civic Museum of Ancient Art in 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 dances a fake bear, around 1760, and Young people having breakfast on the grass with two peasants from the series Country scenes, translated into tapestry by F. Demignot (for other tapestries from the Turin manufacture for which C. provided the cartoons and which are preserved in the Civic Museum of Turin and 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, oil on canvas, except for five landscapes in gouache on paper which are distinguished by cold tones, quite unusual in Cignaroli's painting. Another two tapestries from his designs (Landscape with two figures, Landscape with jugglers and 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 there remain, in the mirror room, four overdoors with Stories from the Old Testament which are believed (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 European private collections. In the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest are preserved 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). Of their children was the painter Angelo. C. died in Turin on 17 February 1800. Bibl.: G. Chevalley, Gliarchitetti, l'archit. e la decoraz. delle ville piemontesi del XVIII sec., Turin 1912, pp. 64, 69, 117, 142, 151; G. Delogu, Pittori minori liguri, lombardi, piemontesi del Seicento e del Settecento, Venice 1931, pp. 238241; V. Moschini, La pittura italiana del Settecento, Florence 1931, p. 35; L. Rosso, La pittura e scultura del '700 a Torino, Turin 1934, pp. 43, 51; R. Buscaroli, La pitt. di paesaggio in Italia, Bologna 1935, pp. 385 s.; G. Lorenzetti, La pittura ital. del Settecento, Novara 1942, p. XLI; A M. Brizio, Ilcastello del Valentino. Le pitture, Turin 1949, p. 230; V. Golzio, Seicento e Settecento, Turin 1950, p. 792; M. Bernardi, La palazzina di caccia di Stupinigi, Turin 1958, tavv. XI, XII, XIII, XIV; L. Mallé, Le arti figur. inPiemonte, Turin 1961, pp. 393, 396 s., 405, 428; Schede Vesme, I, Turin 1963, pp. 317-19 (con bibl.); Mostra del Barocco piemontese (catal.), Turin 1963, I, La Mostra, tav. 17; II, Pittura, pp. 15 s., 110-113, tavv. 170-183; Arazzi, pp. 18 s., tavv. 25-27; III, Mobili e intagli, tav. 260; L. Mallé, Idipinti dei Museo d'arte antica, Turin 1963, pp. 40-46; A. Pedrini, Ville dei secc. XVIIe XVIII in Piemonte, Turin 1965, p. 202; Museo dell'arredamento, Stupinigi, Turin 1966, pp. 82, 88, 138, 139; A. Verdoia Oberto, V.A.C., Savona 1967 (con bibl.); L. Mallé, Stupinigi, Turin 1968, pp. 196-200, 236, 237, 446-449 (con bibl.); Gall. G Caretto, Mostra "La Pitt. in Piemonte nel XVIII sec."(catal.), Turin 1977, nn. 4-17 (continues the error of splitting the personality of C.); Musei del Piemonte. Opere d'arterestaurate... (catal.), edited by G. Romano, Turin 1978, p. 165; Cultura figur. e architett. negliStati del Re di Sardegna - 1773-1861 (catal.), edited by E. Castelnuovo-M. Rosci, Turin 1980, pp. 1420 s., s.v.; U. Thieme-F. Becker, Künstlerlexikon, VI, pp.587, s. De TRECCANI.IT