Giovan Battista Dell'acqua (milan, 1790-1845), Marina Con Fortezza

Giovan Battista dell'Acqua (Milan, 1790-1845)

Marina con fortezza

1833

Oil on canvas, cm diam. 16

Signed and dated on the back

Bibliography: Thieme-Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler, Leipzig 1992; Encyclopedic Dictionary of Italian painters and engravers from the eleventh to the twentieth century, Turin 1972



Giovan Battista dell'Acqua was born to a middle-class family in Milan on August 13, 1890; interested since his youth in the art of painting, he studied under the well-known Lombard landscape painter Giovanni Migliara, whose work had a remarkable impact on the artistic production of the young Milanese painter. Dell'Acqua, having reached artistic maturity, presented his works on several occasions at the main exhibition events in Lombardy of the nineteenth century: he participated, for example, to the promoter of Brera of 1824, presenting two works of small format but exemplary technical expertise, The underground of a cloister and Interior of a cave of a hermit. Throughout his career, the artist devoted himself mainly to the creation of small-format landscapes, representing picturesque views of his homeland, Lombardy (exemplified in this sense is a beautiful view of the Porta Romana ship, currently in private collection), but also panoramas admired during his numerous trips - the destinations of many of which were Naples and Venice - or fantasy scenarios. His works were a great success of public and were particularly appreciated by collectors of the nascent Milanese bourgeois class, despite the criticism attributed to him a certain amount of rigidity.

This work perfectly summarizes all the key features of the artist’s production, such as the use of soft colors and the rendering of a faint moonlight. The artist represents a landscape of one of the destinations of his various trips, the port of Split.