In the closing months of 1900, despite increasing age, Lorenzo Delleani continued his habitual practice of painting in the open at Morozzo in the province of Cuneo on a visit to the Vignola family. The subject of this small panel, precisely dated “5.11.1900”, was most probably drawn from his walks in the grounds and surroundings of the “Castello Vignola”, where he had already studied the reflection of light on the still waters of pools and canals surrounded by the lush green of vegetation in the same period just the year before (see Grumo di luce sullo stagno (Morozzo) and Parco della Margarita, both in private collections). The subject, intimately felt and already addressed from life in previous years, is depicted with quick, free brushwork that leaves the wooden surface exposed in patches beneath compact layers of paint scored here and there with the handle of the brush. The canal that leads into the wood, prompting the viewer to look in greater depth, provides Delleani with the subject for a painting that fully reveals his sense of light. It is constructed solely of colour, either light and modulated with glazes, as in the semi-transparent greens of the water, or more richly applied in thick strokes of the brush and the palette knife. 

Presumably purchased by Cerruti before 2000, when it was shown in the exhibition Lorenzo Delleani at the Museo Archeologico Regionale in Aosta, the painting was tracked down in a private collection in Turin by Angelo Dragone, who published it in 1974 in his still indispensable study Delleani. La vita, l’opera e il suo tempo (no. 2389 in the chronological list of works). The previous literature given there is confined to articles by E. Bertarelli and G. Deabate, respectively in the art magazine a b c (1932) and the special issue of Illustrazione Biellese published in 1933 to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of Delleani’s death. 

Monica Tomiato