Giuseppe Nogari

Lot description

(Venice 1699–1763) Allegory of Autumn, oil on paper laid down on canvas, 63 x 51 cm, framed inscribed on the canvas on the reverse: Rosalba Provenance: Private collection, Switzerland Teste di carattere, head studies, were among distinctive genres of eighteenth-century Venetian painting. Giuseppe Nogari, trained in the workshop of Antonio Balestra, and was clearly inspired by the works of Giambattista Piazzetta, but perhaps also indebted to Dutch models which were much admired by Venetian collectors. Nogari repeatedly addressed the allegories of the seasons, depicting them as half-length male or female figures identified by flowers or produce corresponding to the time of year. Notable examples include the series conserved in Palazzo Pellegrini in Verona and in the Galleria Sabauda, Turin (D. Succi, Il fiore di Venezia. Dipinti dal Seicento all’Ottocento in collezioni private, Gorizia 2014, pp. 89-90; N. Gabrielli, Galleria Sabauda. Maestri italiani, Turin 1971, pp. 180-182). In the present painting, Autumn is represented as a graceful young woman holding a basket filled with apples, plums, and a cluster of grapes. The delicate brushwork which is soft and vaporous, with an effect of extreme smoothness almost similar to pastel, is enhanced by the use of paper as support and suggests a dating to the 1740s, when Nogari was active at the Savoy court. During this period, he produced overdoors and allegorical half-length figures for the Palazzo Reale in Turin. Nogari arrived in Turin in 1740, during the decoration of the residence of Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy. He remained for two years, working above all on the celebrated Gabinetto degli Specchi and the series of allegorical overdoors. Even after his return to Venice, he continued to receive commissions from the Savoy court and its circle, such as the Marquis d’Ormea, who in 1748 requested “four large history paintings”, now lost (P. A. Orlandi, P. Guarienti, Abecedario pittorico… accresciuto da Pietro Guarienti, Venice 1753, p. 235). This Piedmontese sojourn marked the beginning of Nogari’s international success: in 1743 Francesco Algarotti, acting as agent for Augustus III of Saxony, commissioned four paintings for the royal collections in Dresden, followed by further works in the ensuing years. These canvases, all conserved in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (inv. nos. 589, 590, 592, 593), display the same remarkable softness of touch, an approach that clearly recalls the celebrated pastels of Rosalba Carriera and that may also be observed in the present Allegory of Autumn.