Venice

Venice is a beautiful original black and white lithograph on ivory-colored and velin paper, realized in 1880 by the Italian artist Giacomo Favretto (Venice, 1849-1887).

Signed and dated on plate on the lower right corner. The inscription " G. Favretto " is printed on the lower right margin, out of the frame of the image.

Thanks to this marvelous view of Venice, we could revive the myth of the Serenissima .

Except for some light discolorations of ink, a small hole on the higher margin at the center, light foxing on the lower margin, and a usual yellowing of the paper, this original print is in very good conditions. The original sheet is glued to a white cardboard passepartout (49.7 x 35 cm).

Two pieces of tape are visible on the higher and lower margins, in trasparence.

Giacomo  Favretto  (Venice, 1849-1887)  was a painter of Venetian Verism : with him, we know the artistic and cultural context of Venice in the second half of the nineteenth century. He was born in a humble family, from a carpenter father. His job was to make paper laces to put on the boxes of sweets. Favretto enjoyed making portraits, caricatures and silhouettes with glue and black paper on the boxes of sweets. His skills were noticed by the entrepreneur Ambrogio Pellanda, who enrolled him at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, supporting him economically.

Giacomo's first artistic education was in the palace of Count Zanetti, an art enthusiast, and there he copied the artworks by Tiepolo and Rembrandt and the paintings of Longhi and Guardi.  During his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, he was repeatedly awarded. During his short life, he exhibited in Turin, Genoa, Naples and universals, in Paris, Monaco and Antwerp. With his works, he revived the myth of the Serenissima, illustrating scenes of popular life between narrow streets and squares, canals and bridges, familiar only to Venetians.