"winter Landscape", Painting, Table, Oil On Canvas, Francesco Foschi, Italy, 18th Century

Beautiful oil painting on canvas attributed to Francesco Foschi
Expertise of Doctor Fabrizio Dassie
In perfect condition
Italy, 18th century

External dimensions: 95 x 109 cm - internal 87 x 98 cm

Francesco Foschi (Ancona, 1710 - Rome, 1780)
Winter landscape (oil on canvas, 87 x 98 cm)
The evocative canvas in question presents numerous compositional, stylistic and formal elements of considerable interest for understanding the beginnings of Francesco Foschi's manner.
From the layout of this piece, whose depth is rendered by the tiring unraveling of paths and arboreal backdrops, our author expresses an art that is not yet fully mature, which while showing an undoubted mastery from a technical point of view - as shown by the peculiar foliage covered with snow and the nervous figures in the foreground - it does not reveal the cleanliness of the trait, at times academic, which characterizes his mature artistic phase.
The sources of inspiration for these rural passages are multiple and heterogeneous, starting from the Nordic masters filtered by the landscape architect Marco Ricci.
To harmonize repertoires so different for cultural heritage and inspiration, comes the skilful way of the talented landscape painter from Ancona, where a careful brush transferring every minimum atmospheric detail onto the canvas manages to transform a landscape of invention into a piece torn from everyday life and offered to the viewer in the lively unfiltered realism that only everyday life is able to offer.
Reference bibliography: M. Vinci Corsini, Francesco Foschi, 2002
Dr. Fabrizio Dassie

Francesco Foschi (Ancona, 21 April 1710 - Rome, 21 February 1780)
Francesco Foschi's family was closely linked to the Ferretti di Castelferretti counts, whose lineage was then one of the most powerful in the March of Ancona; the brothers Carlo, Giacomo and Lorenzo were also painters. His hometown, Ancona, belonged to the Papal States and served as Rome's port towards the east; however, Luigi Vanvitelli had not yet arrived to redesign the port and to get the city out of the economic (and consequently artistic) crisis that afflicted Italy.
In 1726 he settled in Fano, a pupil of the painter Francesco Mancini, from whom he learned to paint pictures with figures. However, Foschi soon specialized in landscape painting. It seems that he lived in Rome with his family from 1729 to 1743, but is not a member of the Accademia di San Luca. His first documented commission (January 1739) dates back to this period: twelve small paintings illustrating Ovid's Metamorphoses, works that have survived to this day.
He lost his father, Giuseppe, on 11 May 1743. Shortly after, on 7 January 1744, the painter married the Roman Constanza Seirman. From 1746 he lived in Loreto, where, in addition to being a painter, he was also an art dealer and had frequent relations with Count Bonaccorsi, one of the most important patrons of the time. During these years he developed one of his favorite themes: the winter landscape.
Foschi's art is part of the great Roman schools; in addition to his first teacher Francesco Mancini, his reference models were the Bolognese Guido Reni, his compatriot Carlo Maratta and the Roman Ciro Ferri.
After another stay in Rome, in 1755 he moved to Pesaro, where his daughter Caterina was born. In 1764 he returned to Rome, where he set up his studio in Piazza di Spagna. However, he continued to make frequent returns to the Marches, as the subjects of his paintings prove. This was the period in which his art reached its peak; the most famous winter landscapes in fact date back to these years.