Francesco Simonini

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The original canvas is lined and the paint layer in the sky is raised and insecure with recent loss. Discoloured restorations can be seen to mask damage in the sky, although areas here are in a good condition, to the bottom edge and to the sides. The paint in the mid ground is well preserved; there are slight abrasions to the reds, and one or two losses, but overall the texture and impasto are uncompromised. The varnish has discoloured and the tonality would improve with its removal. Offered in a carved gilt wood frame in good condition."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Simonini was renowned during his lifetime as the leading specialist in the genre of battle painting, and his pictures were highly sought after. He started his career in Parma as an apprentice to the battle painter Francesco Monti called Il Brescianino (1646-1703), although he certainly came in contact and probably also studied under Ilario Mercanti called Il Spolverini (1657-1734) another pupil of Brescianino. As a young artist Simonini travelled to Florence and Rome before settling in Bologna from 1721-7 where his precocious talent in the depiction of battles was quickly noted, and where he was to work in the service of the Papal ambassador Cardinal Ruffo.

He must have returned to Venice at the beginning of the 1730's, and it is from this period that the present picture most likely dates. The vigour of Simonini's brushwork, frenetically weaving its way across the canvas was particularly well suited to the restless and abundant movement of military life, a life which he knew well. From 1733 to 1745 Simonini worked as a painter, draughtsman and advisor in the service of Field Marshall Graf Johann Mattias von der Schulenberg (1661-1747), the national hero and commander of the Venetian army against the Turks. Simonini was not idle and accompanied Von der Schulenberg on many of the Graf's campaigns, drawing and studying from life the intimacies and details of an army on the march and in battle, which he was later to render in oil using his colourful palette to lend a richness and vivacity to the scenes to which he had been an eye witness.

The present composition should be compared to the similar scene listed by Sestieri as Gia Venezia, Vendita Alverà, (G. Sestieri, I Pittori di Battaglie, Rome 1999, p. 464, cat. no. 15 reproduced fig. 15), where the central figure group with the drummers and trumpeters reoccur. A smaller version (55 by 89cm), with some differences, of the present composition is also listed by Sestieri as in a private collection, Bologna (ibid, p. 472, cat. no. 40, reproduced fig. 40 and p. 137, Tav XVIII), and may be a bozzetto for the present picture.