Giovanni Fattori Italian, 1825-1908

Painted circa 1895, Sosta di Cavalleria is a larger version of Fattori's painting of the same title measuring 55 by 80cm, recorded in Bruno Della Chiesa, L'opera completa di Fattori, Milan, 1970, no. 576.

Fattori was a leading member of the Macchiaioli group, which included Telemaco Signorini and Silvestro Lega. The group was formed during the 1850s during the meetings of progressive artists held at the Caffè Michelangelo in Florence. As well as opposing the influence of the city's art academy, espousing instead the emerging French realist style, the artists were also united by their sympathy for the Risorgimento, the cause of Italian unification.

The present work reflects both of these Macchiaioli ideals. It reveals Fattori's deep felt involvement with the campaigns in a militarised Italy, while compositionally and stylistically was avant garde for its time. Remarkable for its informality, the unstaged, unglorified depiction of a regiment passing through a village marks a complete break from the academic tradition of representing military scenes. 

Stylistically, too, Fattori's painting is highly modern. Inspired by the French plein air and realist painters, notably Edouard Manet (fig.1), whose work he would have seen during his stay in Paris in 1875, Fattori based his paintings on direct observation, outside of the studio, executing them with a vigorous brushstroke and a luminous palette. The Macchiaioli derived their name from the word macchia, meaning a spot or blotch, used in 1861 by a critic to describe their technique of juxtaposing broad patches of colour, and dark and light tonalities.

Fattori's military paintings, distinguished by their immediacy and radical style of execution, epitomised the Macchiaiolis' progressive language in every sense.

A watercolour version of the present work was sold in these rooms in 1995 (fig.2).

Fig. 1, Edouard Manet, The Execution of Maximilian, Mannheim, Städtische Kunsthalle 265D05102

Fig. 2, Giovanni Fattori, Sosta di Cavalleria, watercolour. Sold in these rooms on 15 June 1994 for £205,000 276D05102