Giambettino Cignaroli (Verona 1706 - 1770)
Madonna and Child, Saint Luigi Gonzaga and Saint Ignatius of Loyola
Ca. 1752-1753
Oil on canvas, 103 x 53 cm
Entry by Anna Maria Cucci
Our canvas appears to be an unpublished "modelletto" for the altarpiece depicting Madonna and Child with Saints Luigi Gonzaga and Ignatius of Loyola, now at the Civic Museums of the Pinacoteca in Vicenza (Fototeca Zeri - card 65372 in b.n.), a work by the Veronese Giambettino Cignaroli, an important progenitor of a family of painters, born in Verona and, over time, partly migrated to Piedmont. The altarpiece, coming from the main altar of the Jesuit church in Contrà Riale, has been remembered in its original location since 1761 as "a beautiful work by Sig. Gio:Bettin Cignaroli, an excellent Veronese Painter…" (Bertotti Scamozzi, 1761). The work was executed in 1755, as indicated by the inscription on the back of the preparatory drawing, in the second of the three books that collect the painter's graphics (Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, F.258 inf., n. 323, n. 324, n. 326). Our modelletto, like the aforementioned altarpiece, presents a balanced chromatic distribution of light and dark tones, spread in regular and complete brushstrokes, which make the surfaces smooth, refined, and elegant. In both, the executive virtuosity of some pictorial passages is striking, such as the soft representation of the fabrics and the crumpled pages of the large book. Both works, modelletto and altarpiece, are emblematic of the ideal continuity from Raphael to Reni to Maratta, of that classicism that permeates the eighteenth-century Veronese school, of which Cignaroli was one of the greatest interpreters.
