Pair of large paintings depicting pastoral scenes, Londonio school, second half of the 18th century Frame W 157 x H 130 x D 9, canvas cm 139 x 110 Price: private negotiation Item accompanied by our certificate of authenticity and expertise (downloadable at the bottom of the page) The pair of paintings, large in size and presented within antique gilded wood frames, with moldings and carvings around the corners, depict pastoral scenes in the eighteenth-century style, typical of the Lombard tradition and close to the manner of the Londonio and their followers, recalling the Bergamo area. The compositions are lively and rich in figures, set outdoors and contextualized in rural landscapes. In the work presented on the left, in the foreground, there is a group of shepherds and shepherdesses, arranged to guide the viewer's gaze towards the center of the work. A seated woman holds a lamb in her lap and seems to be interacting with two little girls who approach her affectionately. On the left, another young woman, standing, holds a wicker basket full of straw containing two chicks; her balanced pose and simple but elegant clothing contribute to outlining the daily dimension of the scene. On the right, a young shepherd, with a stick resting on his shoulders, dominates a varied flock of sheep and goats. The animals, rendered with naturalistic attention, are one of the most characteristic elements of the Londonio's pictorial tradition: expressive, vivid, carefully represented in their postures and the rendering of their fur. Next to the sheep, there are also a donkey and other animals, confirming the narrative richness. The background presents a soft, hilly landscape, crossed by a fence and dominated by a distant village, with houses and a church standing out against a cloudy sky. The warm tones and soft light contribute to creating a serene and bucolic atmosphere, as in a quiet working day among fields and pastures. The second painting, presented here on the right, presents an equally articulated and lively scene, built through a choral narration made up of human figures and animals. In the foreground, on the left, an elderly shepherd is sitting on the ground and surrounded by his sheep; the relaxed posture, the serene face, and the presence of the little dog next to him infuse the scene with a sense of domestic intimacy. Further towards the center, a younger man emerges, standing next to a horse carrying a gourd-made canteen, a wine barrel, and, anchored to the saddle, some baskets containing two small lambs. His gesture, with his arm outstretched to indicate something in the distance, introduces a narrative dynamism that guides the gaze towards the background and creates an implicit storyline. Next to him, on the right, a woman familiar and almost affectionate to the pastoral scene. Other figures can be glimpsed behind her, forming a compact and hardworking group. The horse and the various sheep and goats, painted with evident naturalistic attention, also confirm here the stylistic influence of the Londonio, famous precisely for the detailed and lively rendering of farm animals. The background offers a wide hilly landscape, again a small village, overlooking from a height. A forest, with green and dense trees, introduces depth, while the luminous sky, furrowed by light clouds, harmonizes the entire composition. The atmosphere of the paintings is that of a simple daily life of a rural community immersed in its work, caught in a moment of pause or passage. The whole conveys a sense of familial harmony, typical of Lombard rural scenes, where the relationship between human beings, animals, and landscape is represented with sweetness and narrative participation. The figures represented are reworked in a personal way and brought together in an original composition, drawing inspiration from various engravings by Francesco Londonio, to which they refer with evident formal and thematic affinities. The Londonio family occupies a significant place in the Lombard artistic history of the eighteenth century. The most famous member is Francesco Londonio (1723–1783), a painter and engraver from Milan, but the family also includes other artists who contributed to the formation of a true school linked to pastoral painting. The Londonio's workshop, active in Milan, became a place of training for several artists: not an institutional school, but a creative environment in which style, subjects, and ways of representing the rural world were passed down. By "school of the Londonio" we mean a group of painters, especially from Lombardy, active between the second half of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, who were inspired by the pastoral scenes typical of Francesco Londonio, to the affectionate naturalism in the rendering of animals, to the intimate and daily compositions, to the warm colors and soft light, and, above all, to Francesco's famous engravings, true iconographic matrixes used as models. Many of these artists are not always precisely identifiable, but they belong to a vast productive strand: works intended for villas, country palaces, bourgeois residences that desired elegant and reassuring rural subjects. Francesco Londonio was born in Milan in 1723. Tradition transmits a training first with Ferdinando Porta, a late-Baroque Milanese painter, and then near Benigno Bossi, to approaching the technique of engraving. Painting and graphics both remain fundamental in his production. Londonio becomes famous for a genre that was then much requested: rural painting. His works depict scenes of shepherds, peasants, flocks of sheep and goats, domestic animals, rustic interiors, and country landscapes. His style combines elements of Lombard naturalism, influences from Antonio Allegri known as Correggio, from Ceruti, Philip Peter Roos, Van Laer and Domenico Brandi, whom he met during his travels to Cremona, Rome and Naples, and a sentimental and idyllic vein, which made his works highly appreciated by the nobility and bourgeoisie of the time, as well as the clerical environment. Among his admirers, we remember Archbishop Pozzobelli, Cardinal Vitaliano Borromeo, Cardinal Angelo Maria Durini. In addition to painting, Londonio created numerous etchings, often dedicated to the same pastoral subjects, which contributed to spreading his fame even outside Lombardy. His prints are now considered an essential part of the eighteenth-century Italian engraving tradition. He spends most of his life in Milan, where he continues to paint, engrave, and teach. He dies in 1783, leaving behind a vast corpus of paintings and prints. Londonio is considered one of the greatest interpreters of Lombard pastoral painting of the 18th century. The author of the pair of works object of this study belongs to this tradition, taking up iconographic models of the Londonio and reinterpreting them freely. The ability to rework these schemes without losing their original matrix reveals not only the thorough knowledge of the Londonian pictorial language, but also the willingness to update it through more fluid and personal solutions.In this sense, the two paintings analyzed stand as significant testimonies of the fortune of the Londonio's school in the second eighteenth century and beyond, highlighting how his legacy has continued to influence artists and patrons sensitive to rural atmospheres, to the gentle naturalism of the figures and to the calibrated construction of spaces. The quality of the compositional layout, the careful rendering of the animals and the daily poetics that runs through both works not only confirm their membership in this tradition, but enhance their role within the Lombard panorama and the evolution of the Londonian language. The vivid color palette and the balanced composition make these two works, of large format, very decorative and of marked pleasantness. They can be presented above consoles and chests of drawers or placed side by side on a wall of a living room, a study or equally in entrances or corridors, contributing to the charm and dynamism of the furniture. Carlotta Venegoni

Period: Second half of the 18th century

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