(Venice 1856–1945)
El bocòlo de San Marco, signed, dated A. Milesi 1928, oil on canvas, 160 x 130 cm, framed

Provenance:
Acquired from the artist´s family by the current owner.

Exhibited:
Venice, XVI Esposizione Internationale d’Arte, 1928, room no. 15;
Piazzola sul Brenta, Villa Contarini, L’armonia del vero: vita e paesaggi tra terre e acque: 1842–1932, 10 September - 30 November 2015, no. 30.

Catalogued and illustrated in:
Exhibition catalogue, XVI Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte, Venice 1928, p. 53, no. 23;
Domenico Varagnolo, Alessandro Milesi, pittore veneziano, Venice 1942, p. 43, XLVI;
Clauco Benito Tiozzo, Alessandro Milesi pittore. Una vita per l’Arte, Venice 1989, ill. 146, p. 178, no. 488, p. 233;
Luisa Turchi, le scene di genere: una vita popolare e revival settecentesco, in Alessandro Milesi (1856–1945). L’anima nel colore, l’eleganza nel ritratto, catalogo della mostra a cura di Luisa Turchi (Pordenone, Palazzo Cossetti, 10 December 2010 – 28 February 2011), Quinto di Treviso 2010, p. 24;
Exhibition catalogue, Luisa Turchi, L’armonia del vero: vita e paesaggi tra terre e acque: 1842–1932, Allemandi ed., 2015, p. 112, no. 30.

El bocòlo de San Marco is the gift of a red rosebud from a gentleman to a lady as a symbol of undying love. The traditional “lovers” festival of the bocòlo takes place in Venice on St Mark’s Day, the city’s patron saint, every 25 April. Here, the festival is transported back to the 18th century, revisited through sumptuous costumes. The work is full of colour and vivacity, marked by Milesi’s agile twentieth-century brushstrokes typical of his late genre scenes. Milesi favours a vertical format for this work and sets the scene in front of the imposing St. Mark’s Basilica. The giving of the gift is foregrounded in a composition that combines figures dressed in both 18th-century and 19th-century clothing.