The Knights' Parade

Francesco Casanova (London 1732/33- Vorderbruhl, Vienna 1803)

The Knights' Parade

Oil on canvas, cm 37,5 x 67,5

With frame, cm 48 x 78

Critical sheet Prof. Alberto Crispo

The new painting presented here depicts a stop of knights in a mountain landscape. The rider in the center controls the situation, the two in the foreground, lying on the ground, resting from the hardships of the journey and the one in the background is busy tying up his luggage, while on the left you can see in the distance other figurines of soldiers on horseback.

The canvas is the work of Francesco Casanova, as revealed by comparisons with other evidence of the artist such as the Knight of the Louvre or the other passed on May 17, 2007 at Finarte in Goito, lot 162, not to mention the other canvas with battle scene appeared from Sotheby’s in London on November 8, 1978, lot 9. In all the specimens compared we find the same liquid color yield, partly derived from the study of the Veneti, and the obvious 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 was trained in Venice with the Guardi, in Florence with the Simonini and in Paris with Charles Parrocel: to shape his visual imagery are also the Battles of the Bergognone, particularly appreciated by customers in that time. Having reached full artistic maturity, the Casanova was active between Dresden and Paris, where he received particularly positive opinions regarding his activity even from the creator of the mastodontic project of the Encyclopedia, Diderot. During his stay in Paris, Casanova painted two of his most famous works, the battles of Fribourg and Lens for the Bourbon palace of the prince of Condé (now at the Louvre).It seems that the artist later returned to Dresden, but at the end of 1783 he moved to Vienna with his better-known brother Giacomo and lived there until his death in nearby Vorderbruhl in 1803. During his residence in Vienna, the painter also worked for the tsarina Catherine II of Russia, performing paintings depicting episodes of the Russo-Turkish wars (1769-74 and 1787-92). Francesco Casanova had a large school and among his pupils are to be remembered at least the fighters Jacques-Philippe de Loutherbourgh the young, Jean-Pierre Norblin de la Gourdaine, Ignace Duvivier and Jean-Baptiste Le Paon.