(Alessandria 1785–1837 Milan)
Archeologists amongst classical ruins,
oil on panel, 25.3 x 35.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
with Derek Johns Fine Art, London;
Private European collection, since 2017

We are grateful to Bożena Anna Kowalczyk for suggesting the attribution of the present painting. She dates the painting to circa 1810–1820.

In this composition Giovanni Migliara achieves one of his most convincing interpretations of the work of Antonio Canal, il Canaletto (1697–1768). Indeed, the painting reproduces, with minimal variations, one of Canaletto’s etchings from the series ‘Vedute altre prese da i luoghi altre ideate’, published in Venice after 1744 (see R. Bomberg, Canaletto’s etchings, London/New York 1974, pp. 162–163, no. 31).

On the left near a marble block and a massive square column, three men – young archaeologists – are seen digging; a pyramid and a column crowned by a statue appear beyond a hill in the distance. The middle-ground is occupied by a triumphal arch closed by a fountain, to the right of which, beyond a low wall, are a house and a bell tower. Warm clear light envelops the monuments revealing the rendering of their surfaces with transparent veils of colour and skillful detailing. The tonal range of browns, ochre, beige and olive is effectively punctuated by touches of red, white and blue in the figures. Unlike his model, Migliara gives greater importance to the figures: the first on the left, a fine apparition in romantic style, is seen frontally rather than from the back as in the etching, while the group on the right includes three rather than two silhouettes. The branches of a tree on the left are omitted, but a second bush is added between the pyramid and column. The contrast between the shadows in the foreground and the luminosity that invests the triumphal arch further away is peculiar to Migliara and was praised by his contemporaries.

At the start of his career the Venetian achievements of Canaletto and Francesco Guardi (1712–1793) were of great importance to Migliara, a valued, refined and highly prolific painter and set designer active in Milan from 1805, where he became a professor of the Accademia di Brera, the founder of his own school of painting and in 1833 court painter to the Sardinian King and Duke of Savoy, Carlo Alberto. In particular, the prints of Canaletto and those drawn from his paintings by Antonio Visentini (1688–1782) were a source of inspiration for his small and miniature canvases and panels, as well as for his works on paper in oil or watercolour laid down on canvas, largely made during the first decade of the nineteenth century. Later his interest in the monuments and churches of Lombardy prevailed, but Venetian themes continued in his original, invented compositions. For Migliara the etchings of Canaletto remained the most admirable examples of refinement and creative freedom of invention.