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 based on the death certificate that says he was "70 years old". A. Baudi di Vesme (Schede Vesme) clarified the confusion surrounding 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 affected taste and Arcadian nostalgia distinguish C. from his father, with whom he collaborated; the somewhat 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 autograph and workshop production. The work of the C. is documented from 1749 to 1794. An exhaustive list is reported in Schede Vesme, which should be consulted 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 antique 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 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 east apartment. The decoration, formerly in the Peiretti di Condove palace in Turin (now in a private collection in Paris) dates from 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: this is a total of nine canvases, executed between 1771-72 and 1778, with extensive collaboration from assistants. In these, the aims and limits of C.'s painting are clearly evident, aimed at keeping an Arcadian world alive that has now been surpassed and which is resolved in the ways of a mannered decoration. In 1778 C. became professor at the renewed Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Turin. In 1782 Vittorio Amedeo III appointed him "our painter in landscapes and groves". In the royal palace, where he is cited 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 from 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 dancing a fake bear, around 1760, and Young people having breakfast on the grass with two peasant women from the Scene Campestri series, translated into tapestry by F. Demignot (for other tapestries from the Turin factory for which C. supplied the cartoons and which are kept 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 that 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 beggar) are in Palazzo Carignano. In the Galleria Sabauda there is a probable Self-Portrait with a globe, datable to the 1960s (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 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. Two Hunting Scenes are kept in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest (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'archit. and la decoraz. of the Piedmontese villas of the 18th century, Turin 1912, pp. 64, 69, 117, 142, 151; G. Delogu, Minor Ligurian, Lombard, Piedmontese painters of the seventeenth and eighteenth 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 ff.; 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, La palazzina di caccia di Stupinigi, Turin 1958, tavv. XI, XII, XIII, XIV; L. Mallé, Le arti figur. inPiemonte, 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, tav. 17; II, Pittura, pp. 15 ff., 110-113, tavv. 170-183; Arazzi, pp. 18 ff., 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 (with bibl.); L. Mallé, Stupinigi, Turin 1968, pp. 196-200, 236, 237, 446-449 (with bibl.); Gall. G Caretto, Mostra "La Pitt. in Piemonte nel XVIII sec."(catal.), Turin 1977, nn. 4-17 (continues in 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
