(Treviso 1845–1911 Padua)
Returning Home from Market, signed, dated P. Pajetta 1884, tempera on canvas, 80 x 160 cm, framed, (GG)

Provenance:
Acquired by the father of the current owner;
thence by descent to the present owner;
European private collection.

Catalogued and illustrated in:
I Pajetta, l’eredità della pittura 1809 –1987, Ed. Nicolodi 2006, p.82–83, no. 8.

Exhibited:
Vittorio Veneto, Il museo del Cenedese, I Pajetta, l’eredità della pittura 1809–1987, 24 June - 24 September 2006, no. 8.

Pajetta’s affinity with the quotidian was a key feature of his compositions which focused on portraying ordinary people with their livestock.
The present lots depict a solitary shepherdess leading a sheep and two cows to their evening shelter. The local youngsters spent long hours outside their village, going to pasture, to the market or to mass on Sunday. A trip to the market or to mass offered a moment of pleasant distraction, represented by the man reading a book under a parasol.
Both paintings reflect his long-standing interest in the lives of rural workers. Many had to spend endless hours every day tending the family’s small flocks or solitary cow. Peasant activities dominated Pajetta’s subject matter.
He is considered one of the foremost animal painters of his generation. From the 1880s he exhibited internationally and this was his most successful and creative period as a painter. In 1884 he exhibited several works at the Crystal Palace in London for which he was awarded a silver medal.