(Verona 1653–1725)
Prince Eugene of Savoy during the Battle of Belgrade; and
An Episode from the Battle of Belgrade;
oil on canvas, each 199.5 x 245.5 cm, unframed, a pair (2)

Provenance:
possibly Prince Eugene of Savoy, Vienna;
Private collection, Italy;
where acquired by the present owner

Literature:
possibly L. Crespi, Felsina Pittrice. Vite de’ pittori bolognesi, Rome 1769, p. 188

We are grateful to Giancarlo Sestieri for confirming the attribution of the present paintings on the basis of high resolution digital photographs.

These imposing canvases represent two moments from the Battle of Belgrade, which in the summer of 1717 saw Austrian troops, under the command of Prince Eugene of Savoy, defeat the Ottoman army besieging the city. The two paintings both offer detailed birds-eye views of the event: one represents the battle on the plain by the Sava River and the other the decisive manoeuvre clinching the Austrian army’s victory with Prince Eugene. In the foreground of this painting Prince Eugene is clearly distinguishable on horseback, leading the attack against the Turks that would favourably determine the outcome of the battle. Beyond the foreground, the aerial view opens out over the wide plane to show the encampments of the two sides, and the city of Belgrade on the promontory between the Sava River and the Danube.

This hard fought victory was of great strategic importance because it guaranteed the Habsburg Empire control over the Balkans. It also increased the fame of the commander that made it possible, Prince Eugenio of Savoy, who decided to immortalise the event in a series of paintings. For this purpose, he called to Vienna the era’s most celebrated painter of battle scenes, Antonio Calza from Verona. The painter’s biographer Luigi Crespi records in his Vite that from 1714 Calza worked for the Prince and made ‘many works, among which the capture of Belgrade’ (see literature). It is therefore highly likely that the two works here under discussion can be identified with those of this commission.

In the Prince’s rich collection of paintings, battle scenes occupied a privileged position, ranging from the seventeenth century works by Borgognone to others celebrating his own victories like those he commissioned from Jan van Huchtemburg between 1708 and 1709, now conserved in the Galleria Sabauda, Turin. After the Prince’s death, part of his collection was acquired by Carlo Emanuele III of Savoy, a part remained in Vienna, and other works were dispersed separately over the course of the nineteenth century, which seems to have been the fate of the present works.
The decision to call Antonio Calza to Vienna to execute these Battle scenes is a clear testament to the fame that the artist had earned in the genre. He was particularly distinguished for his ability to represent the various episodes of military action with great realism. In these two works the artist successfully marries a general overview of the event, perhaps drawing inspiration from the compositions of Peeter Snayers which he likely knew through prints, with the detailed depiction of individual actions: an ability that he had likely been developing since the earliest years of his practice. As a youth Calza travelled to Rome to complete his training and there he must have been aware of the most celebrated battle scene painter of the seventeenth century, Jacques Courtois, called Il Borgognone. Calza was subsequently active in Verona, Milan and Bologna where he settled and became so well established that he was included by Crespi in his survey of the city’s artists, in the above mentioned, Vite.