150 - Francesco Sartorelli (1856–1939)

Francesco Sartorelli (1856–1939) Fishermen in the Lagoon Oil on canvas 94.5 x 140.5 cm Other inscriptions: “26-2” on the stretcher Distinguishing features: on the reverse, label from the Galleria Nuova Arcadia, Padua Provenance: Sartorelli heirs; Sotheby’s, “19th Century Painting and Sculpture” (Milan, June 12, 2007, lot 20, €15,000); Galleria Nuova Arcadia, Padua (until 2009); Veneto Banca SpA in LCA Bibliography: Isabella Reale, ed., Valentina Bondi, entries and documentary materials, “Francesco Sartorelli. Lights on the Upper Adriatic: Leading Figures in Landscape Painting between the 19th and 20th Centuries,” Udine, 2007, plate 30, pp. 39 (ill.), 55 (ill.) Exhibitions: “Francesco Sartorelli. Lights on the Upper Adriatic: Leading Figures in Landscape Painting from the 19th to the 20th Century,” Udine Gallery of Modern Art, July 6–October 2007 Condition. Support: 80% (tear repaired with canvas) Condition. Surface: 80% (crackle) For direct WhatsApp assistance before and during the live auction: +39 346 12 999 80 // Direct assistance via WhatsApp before and during the auction: +39 346 12 999 80 Having taken up painting at the age of thirty as a self-taught artist—after abandoning his medical studies and a decade-long career as a flutist touring Europe—Francesco Sartorelli (Cornuda 1856 – Udine 1939) found his place in the late-19th-century Venetian art scene among the heirs to the tradition of Guglielmo Ciardi, with a particular preference for morning and evening light and for landscapes—both lagoon and alpine—featuring bodies of water. As noted by Isabella Reale, his artistic language developed through the influence of Segantini, mediated by de Grubicy, culminating at the turn of the century in the definition of a “mood-based” landscape (Isabella Reale, “Additions to the Catalog: Francesco Sartorelli,” in Francesco Sartorelli. Lights on the Upper Adriatic: Leading Figures in Landscape Painting between the 19th and 20th Centuries,” Udine, 2007). This is, however, a form of symbolism that does not distort reality but rather takes the form of a literary and sentimental interpretation in the tradition of Pietro Fragiacomo. “Fishermen in the Lagoon” is part of a long series of paintings dedicated to the Venetian lagoon, created over a period spanning from his solo exhibition at the 1910 Biennale (“IX International Art Exhibition of the City of Venice,” Venice 1910, pp. 112–114, nos. 4–7, 9–12, 24, 37, 41) to the 1925 solo exhibition at the Galleria Pesaro, which included some eighty paintings, some of which were published by Guido Marangoni in the magazine *Emporium* (Guido Marangoni, “Solo Exhibition by the Painter Francesco Sartorelli,” Galleria Pesaro, Milan 1925; Guido Marangoni, “Contemporary Artists: Francesco Sartorelli,” in *Emporium*, LXII, 1925, 370, pp. 244–257, p. 246). The work under consideration is stylistically akin to these very articles; it can be dated to the 1920s, a period in which, under the influence of the aesthetics of a return to order, Sartorelli’s brushwork became more graphic, and space was constructed through the use of flat areas of color, with contrasts of planes and masses revealing his study of Post-Impressionism. In the views of the canals of Caorle and the surroundings of Chioggia and Torcello, we see recurring wide horizons and shimmering skies of a still and silent natural space in which traces of human activity—fences, sheds, or the typical lagoon boats being maneuvered—all in keeping with that taste for exploring “lesser” Venice which, along with Fragiacomo, Sartorelli had inherited from Guglielmo Ciardi. Teresa Sacchi Lodispoto