(Rome 1747–1819 Milan)
Winter landscapes with figures near a river,
oil on canvas, each 73 x 99 cm, framed, a pair (2)

Provenance:
art market, Paris;
Private collection, Italy;
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Alberto Crispo for suggesting the attribution to Francesco Fidanza and for his help in cataloguing the present paintings (written communication).

The present pair of paintings represent winter scenes beside a lake. In the first painting wayfarers make their way onto a stone bridge with a defensive tower, while in the foreground there is a labourer on a mule and in the distance other people warm themselves at a fire near a cave. In the second painting a house is in flames and some figures are seen fleeing across a wooden walkway, while others are on a boat headed to the opposite shore where some fugitives have already gathered.

The present works can be compared to others signed by Fidanza such as the Winter Landscape, dated 1796 and in a private collection in Bergamo (see: Collezioni private Bergamasche, Bergamo 1981, II, no. 548), and another of the same subject which recently appeared at auction (Dorotheum, Vienna, 21 October 2014, lot 104 and Christie’s, New York, 29 January 2015, lot 303). The rendering of the landscape and the atmospheric effects in these paintings, is rooted in the eighteenth-century taste for decorative painting, yet they already strongly anticipate a pre-romantic, even neo-gothic sensibility.

Francesco Fidanza trained in Rome with his father Filippo, also a painter, and in 1793 he moved to Florence and then at the close of the century to Paris. In 1809, he moved permanently to Milan. Fidanza was stylistically influenced by Claude Joseph Vernet (1714–1789), while his handling of paint, although evidently richer and with greater contrasts of colour, recalls the work of Francesco Foschi (1710-1780).