In 1873, after several years of absence from exhibitions that coincided with him taking up a teaching post at the Regia Accademia Albertina (1869), Antonio Fontanesi reappeared on the art scene when he sent his large canvas Aprile (April) to the World’s Fair in Vienna and a smaller painting entitled Il Lavoro (Work) to the Società Promotrice di Belle Arti exhibition in Turin. The latter work has been lost for some time, but a trace of it remains in the form of an old photographic print (fig. 1).¹ A comment was dedicated to it in the file contained in the elegant folder commemorating the exhibition. It was signed by Luigi Rocca, chairman of the Società Promotrice, who expressed his appreciation of Fontanesi with these words: “…the main part, which is a vast and very animated countryside, is brought to life by two oxen who plough the ground under the farmer’s guidance. Now, I’m not here to say that Fontanesi’s painting is without flaws, I who fought the so-called school of the future in its excesses; however, everyone must confess that the sight of these paintings highlighted even further the defects of that entirely conventional and over-elaborate painting that it was fashionable to produce among us…”² One of the rare demonstrations of esteem for the artist from Reggio Emilia during the difficult years of his widely debated teaching at the Regia Accademia Albertina in Turin was the decision to include the etching of his work among the five reproductions in the commemorative edition (fig. 2).  The creation of this small-scale version of the painting, which seems to have been engraved by Fontanesi himself, can be associated with the lovely sketch in the Cerruti Collection. 

Compared to the composition of Work, the sketch is represented as a mirror image, as is logical if we think of how the plate is produced, and with reduced, almost monochrome colouring, which allows us to suppose that this must have been useful for prefiguring the result. The small size also takes on a precise significance, given that it matches the size of the engraving, as does the adoption of a free and experimental technique that, by combining oil painting and graphic, achieves a powerful chiaroscuro effect and highlights the illuminated areas. 

As well as documenting an interesting passage in the artist’s creative process, the sketch reveals his interest in a subject linked to his time in Florence, in 1867, when he produced a first large canvas on the theme of ploughing in the studio of Cristiano Bantil, entitled Working on the Land (Milan, private collection). Unlike that piece, everything is more tangible and real here, almost suggesting that this shift in focus can be attributed to the maturation of that “poetry of truth” and the desire to try his hand at the realist experiments in everyday subject matter conducted during the same period by some of his younger followers, including Alfredo d’Andrade, Ernesto Rayper and Vittorio Avondo, protagonists of the intense season of the so-called School of Rivara. The sketch was bought by the Galleria Fogliato in Turin, which started out as a frame shop in 1916 and became a point of reference for 19th-century Italian painting after the war. The work was already owned by Cerruti in 1993: in fact, its presence is recorded in the handwritten inventory of the collection dated 30 June of that year. 

Virginia Bertone

1 V. Bertone, “Gli anni di Fontanesi a Torino”, in Turin 1997, p. 115.

2 L. Rocca, “Rivista Generale. Proemio”, in Società Promotrice 1873, p. 14.