Pietro Graziani, Pair of battle scene, oil on canvas, 17th century
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Pietro Graziani (active in the late 17th century and early 18th century) Two battle scenes Oil on canvas, 24 x 31 cm - Framed, 35 x 42 cm. One genre that met with wide acclaim in seventeenth-century Neapolitan painting and flattering success among collectors was the battle. The nobility loved to adorn the walls of their salons with battles depicting single acts of heroism or complex combat that extolled patriotism and warlike prowess, virtues with which the nobility loved to identify. The Church was also at the forefront of commissions, commissioning artists to depict the spectacular triumphs of Christendom over the infidels. The present pair of battle scenes, depicting in the first the departure of an army by sea and in the second a clash on a bridge, are to be attributed to the hand of Pietro Graziani, a painter active in the late 17th and early 18th centuries and belonging to the Graziani family, which artistic historiography is still trying to delineate. Pietro Graziani is hypothetically the son of Francesco Graziani, known as Ciccio Napoletano. Still to be defined is his figure and his production many times confused with that of his father but characterized by a more modern language, more akin to eighteenth-century taste, showing greater verve and fluency of touch. Peter's name appears in the inventory regarding two clearly eighteenth-century battles of the Hopeton House collation of Linlighton, noted in the inventories of 1733,1750 and 1817. And again a painting from a private Bolognese collection bears on the back an inscription" Pietro..." The merit of this battle lies in the uniform chromatic-luministic vibration, which, as in this case, takes on dominant silvery and azure tones. It is a very short-lived painting, with an exquisitely decorative purpose and completely disinterested in realistic intentions.
ID: 77435-1716972792-92367