Description
Giuseppe Zais (Forno di Canale 1709 – Treviso 1784) – Landscapes with Washerwomen.
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 (Forno di Canale 1709 – Treviso 1781) was one of the most famous 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, observing the works of his illustrious predecessor Marco Ricci, and was a contemporary of Francesco Zuccarelli, from whom he drew the grace he achieved in his most refined works. Zais’s style was distinguished by a much more rural depiction of the Arcadian landscape than that of his eighteenth-century colleagues. His compositions, although inspired by Rococo, are enveloped in a different sense of realism given by the use of more marked, brown tones and by a material, thick application of colour.
