Description
Giuseppe Zais (Forno di Canale 1709 – Treviso 1784) – Landscape with Shepherds and a Spinner.
Oil on canvas, in a carved and gilded wooden frame.
– The painting is accompanied by a critical note by Professor Ugo Ruggieri.
Condition report: Lined canvas. The painted surface is in good condition.
Giuseppe Zais (1709–1781) was one of the most celebrated Venetian landscape painters, known for his depictions of bucolic scenes featuring stylized figures of shepherds, flocks, and washerwomen, set in an idyllic rural landscape inspired by the Venetian countryside. He trained in Venice, where he observed the works of his illustrious predecessor Marco Ricci, from whom he drew clear inspiration. He was a contemporary of Francesco Zuccarelli, from whom he derived the grace that characterizes his most refined works. Zais’s style was distinguished by a more authentically rural depiction of the Arcadian landscape than that of his contemporaries: his compositions, though Rococo-inspired, are imbued with a different sense of realism, resulting from the use of bolder, browner tones and a textured, rich application of color. The painting presented here is a high-quality work, executed by the Belluno master at the height of his maturity. The protagonists of the scene are the four figures in the center, delicately depicted and delineated by Zais in a moment of peace and serenity on the banks of the stream. A mother and child can be recognized, having come to fetch water from the river, while behind them a spinner is approached by a young man reclining on the grass, wearing a hat. The entire scene is immersed in a landscape rendered with vibrant brush strokes, not rigidly delineated, which gives the whole an intimate and idealized sense.
