Cesare Dell'Acqua (Piran d'Istria 1821 – Ixelles 1905), “Les Jeux” Oil on canvas, 86 x 162 cm. Signed “Cesare Dell’Acqua” on the right, period frame. The overdoor, consisting of canvas and original frame that give it the appearance of a tympanum, comes from the Chateau des Amerois in Brussels, home of Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders and younger brother of King Leopold II of Belgium. Following a fire that razed the previous building to the ground, in 1877 Philip commissioned the construction of a new castle, intended as a summer residence, for himself and his family. The pictorial decoration of the interiors was entrusted to Dell'Acqua, who had settled in Brussels and had already been working there since 1848; following the sale of the castle after the First World War, the canvases disappeared from their original location. Les Jeux apparently represents a genre scene set in the Renaissance period; a more careful eye will notice instead how the four figures in the foreground are not just extras, but portraits of real historical figures. The woman in the coral pink dress is Princess Maria of Hohenzollern, Philip's wife and Countess of Flanders; in one hand she holds a perch on which a goldfinch rests, a symbol of the Passion of Christ and probably a reference to the family's Catholic faith. To her left, a little girl dressed in the finest green brocade is portrayed from behind, while she observes the court enjoying the game: this is Princess Henriette, the family's second daughter. To the right of the countess is Prince Baldwin; the dark-skinned boy is portrayed while conversing and affectionately placing his hand on the shoulder of the youngest, Prince Albert, recognizable by his head of golden curls. The child is dressed in a white dress that reaches his feet, as was customary for infants of both sexes until the beginning of the 20th century; in one little hand he holds a curious ring-shaped object, perhaps a small sweet or an amber teething toy. As the firstborn, Baldwin was first in line to the throne of Belgium, but he never managed to ascend to the throne due to his premature death at only twenty-one years old. The prestigious position would fall to his younger brother, who ascended to power under the name of King Albert I of Belgium. The recognition of the canvas as an overdoor of the Chateau des Amerois was possible thanks to the artist's original sketch, a medium-sized watercolor now kept at the Cabinet des stampes of the Bibliothèque Royale in Brussels; the drawing is known by the title written by Cesare Dell'Acqua himself, Welcome, and presents notable differences with the final version; among all, the absence of Princess Josephine, who is instead present in the project watercolor. The pendant to Les Jeux must have been an overdoor depicting Philip, Count of Flanders, as demonstrated by the presence of a watercolor sketch in which he is portrayed together with his wife and his little son Albert; unfortunately, its current location is unknown. Both watercolor drawings are published in the catalogs edited by Flavio Tossi dedicated to the painter Cesare Dell'Acqua. BIOGRAPHY Cesare Dell'Acqua was born in Piran d'Istria in 1821. Following the death of his father Andrea, a judge, the family moved to Capodistria in 1826, the Dell'Acqua's city of origin. He embarked on a school career that continued in Trieste, but he was forced to interrupt his studies due to economic needs: from 1833 he carried out a modest job at the Parisi & C. shipping company, practicing drawing and following his vocation. One of his sketches was noticed by the sculptor Pietro Zandomeneghi, who, together with other Venetian artists and patrons, including the historian Pietro Kandler, managed to obtain a scholarship from the Municipality of Trieste to allow the young Dell'Acqua to study painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. At the age of twenty-one, he began his real artistic career, already making his debut in 1843 at the Fourth Exhibition of the Trieste Society of Fine Arts. The following year, he was commissioned by the municipality of Trieste, together with the landscape painter Alberto Rieger, to create a series of fifteen lithographs in memory of the celebrations for the official visit of the Emperor of Austria Ferdinand I and his wife Maria Anna of Savoy, making himself known in aristocratic circles, mainly Austrian. After completing his studies at the Venetian academy in 1847, he left for a European trip, stopping in Vienna and Munich before arriving in Paris at the beginning of the following year. He remained in the French city for a short time due to the outbreak of the Third French Revolution, of which Dell'Acqua's sketchbook, now at the Louvre, remains a testimony; the artist then moved to Brussels, where his older brother Eugenio had been living for years. Dell'Acqua proceeded to integrate into the Belgian artistic and multicultural environment, joining the Cercle Artistiques et Littéraire and becoming a pupil of the history painter Louis Gallait, a non-casual choice: "history painting", that is, which depicts scenes taken from Western secular history, is considered by the Academies of the time the most prestigious form in the hierarchy of genres. During the same period, in line with the romantic trend, he presented a work dedicated to Niccolò Machiavelli at the Brussels Exhibition. In 1855 he married a young woman from a good Belgian family, with whom he had two daughters, consolidating the bond with society and the local territory without ever forgetting Trieste, continuing to manage its commissions. His talent and executive skills earned him important commissions from the Archduke Maximilian of Austria: on the occasion of his marriage to Princess Charlotte of Belgium, celebrated in Brussels in 1857, he was called upon to portray the ceremony from life, and then hired to decorate the Miramare Castle of Trieste with a historical cycle. There were also enconmiums of a military chivalrous type, recognized to the artist by King Leopold, who named him Knight of his Order in 1863 and subsequently by Maximilian of Austria, with the title of Officer of the Order of Guadalupe in the following year. An extremely prolific artist, at the beginning of the 1870s he moved away from academic romantic and historical currents to create works with a decorative taste inspired by the Venetians of the Renaissance, first of all Titian and Veronese. These pictorial cycles, with a spectacular but refined taste, earned him wealthy commissions, including those of the Italian Consulate at the Palazzo Herrera and Philip Count of Flanders, brother of the King of Belgium. He made his debut in the international scene with his participation in the Universal Exhibition of Vienna in 1873 and the International Exhibition of London the following year, sending his works in the following years to exhibitions throughout Europe but also in the United States and Australia. In 1874, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence asked him for a self-portrait to be included in the gallery of famous painters of their museum; subsequently the Academy of Fine Arts in Milan appointed him honorary member of the Committee. After a life of celebrated successes, he died in the municipality of Ixelles in 1905; shortly after the already mentioned Cercle Artistiques et Littéraire of which he was a part dedicated to him the first imposing perspective. His works are now kept in the museums of Aversa and Brussels, in the Collections of the royals of Belgium as well as in Venice, Padua, Piran d'Istria, Capodistria and above all Trieste, in the Civic Museums, at Miramare Castle and Villa Vianello.