Knights' Stop
Francesco Casanova (London 1732/33- Vorderbruhl, Vienna 1803)
Knights' Stop
Oil on canvas, 37.5 x 67.5 cm
With frame, 48 x 78 cm
Critical note by Prof. Alberto Crispo
The unpublished painting presented here depicts a stop of knights within a mountain landscape. The knight in the center controls the situation, the two in the foreground, lying on the ground, rest from the hardships of the journey, and the one in the background is intent on tying the baggage, while other figures of soldiers on horseback can be seen in the distance on the left.
The canvas is the work of Francesco Casanova, as revealed by comparisons with other works by the artist such as the Cavalier of the Louvre or the other one that went through Finarte in Goito on May 17, 2007, lot 162, not to mention the other canvas with a battle scene that appeared at Sotheby's in London on November 8, 1978, lot 9. In all the compared examples we find the same liquid rendering of the color, partly derived from the study of the Venetian artists, and the very evident Nordic taste, which echoes the models of Philips Wouwermann and Jan van Huchtenburg.
Francesco Casanova was born in 1732/33 in London, where his parents were acting. He trained in Venice with the Guardi, in Florence with Simonini and in Paris with Charles Parrocel: however, the Battles of Bergognone, particularly appreciated by patrons in those years, also shaped his visual imagination. Having reached full artistic maturity, Casanova was active between Dresden and Paris, where he gathered particularly positive opinions regarding his activity also from the creator of the mammoth project of the Encyclopédie, Diderot. During his period of stay in Paris, Casanova painted two of his most famous works, the battles of Freiburg and Lens for the Bourbon palace of the Prince of Condé (now at the Louvre). Subsequently, it seems that the artist returned to Dresden, but, from the end of 1783, he moved to Vienna, together with his more famous brother Giacomo, and lived here until his death in nearby Vorderbruhl in 1803. During his residence in Vienna, the painter also worked for Tsarina Catherine II of Russia, executing canvases depicting episodes of the Russo-Turkish wars (1769-74 and 1787-92). Francesco Casanova had a vast school and among his students should be mentioned at least the battle painters Jacques-Philippe de Loutherbourgh the younger, Jean-Pierre Norblin de la Gourdaine, Ignace Duvivier and Jean-Baptiste Le Paon.