VINCENZO CABIANCA | Presumed portrait of the artist's mother

Noferini Collection, n°21

The canvas has been strip lined along the four tacking edges. There is a very light stretcher mark corresponding to the four stretcher bars. UV light reveals small spots of retouching in the figure’s face and a number of strokes in the background.
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Vincenzo Cabianca began his career by training in Venice, before settling in Florence, frequenting the Caffè Michelangiolo, the gathering place of the painters who were to form soon the Macchiaioli group, of which Cabianca was one of the founding and most influential members. Returning from a Parisian trip in 1861 with Telemaco Signorini and Cristiano Banti, he started dedicating himself to landscape painting, like his friends, but without giving up other genres, history painting as well as portrait. The reverse of the stretcher bears an inscription "La Mamma", implying that the painting could represent the mother of the artist, depicted realistically and without artifice.