Gaspare Galliari
Traviglio, 1761-Milan, 1823
Interior view of an ancient monument
Pen in brown ink and gray wash.
220 x 284 mm – 8 11/16 x 11 3/16 in.
Provenance – Paris, Daniel Greiner gallery, catalog April-May 2015, n° 9b (reproduced).
Gaspare Galliari was born into a dynasty of painters and theater designers[1]. Son of Giovanni Antonio (1718-1783), he trained with his uncle Fabrizio (1709-1790) and mainly carried out his career in Milan, while practicing in Turin, Genoa, Venice and Vienna. Specializing in trompe l’oeil theater sets, he became a successful designer of perspectives and quadrature for private individuals as well as for the Royal Theaters of Turin and Milan. He also worked in Genoa, Venice and Vienna. An album of aquatints based on his projects for the theater, Numero XXIV Invenzioni Teatrali, was published by Batelli and Fanfanci in 1803 in Milan.
Although the drawings are difficult to attribute between the artists of the Galliari family, the use of brown ink to draw the details of the architecture, that of the gray wash laid down in large strokes and the free and rapid line are typical characteristics. in the manner of Gaspare Galliari such as the Interior view with fireplace kept at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas (inv. TL2004.58). This sheet could have originally been part of a sketchbook that the artist carried with him and on which he sketched his projects for scenographic decorations.
Condition report – A few stains, good general condition.
[1] About the Galliari family: see Rossana Bossaglia, I fratelli: pittori, Milan, 1962 and Mercedes Viale Ferrero, La scenografia del 700 e i fratelli Galliari, Turin, 1963
