Gerolamo Induno: The Sentry
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Artist |
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Title |
title QS:P1476,it:"Sentinella"
label QS:Lit,"Sentinella"
label QS:Lde,"Der Wächter"
label QS:Len,"The Sentry" |
Object type |
painting |
Description |
Acquired in 1993, this painting is virtually identical to Garibaldian Legionnaire in Rome in the Museo del Risorgimento, Milan. These two works of 1851 reprise, in their turn, another canvas in the Milan museum [1], which, dated 1849, enables us to trace the subject to a specific episode in the Italian Risorgimento: Garibaldi’s troops defending the Roman Republic against the French army that had come to Pope Pius IX’s aid to restore his temporal power. The painter himself participated in these events as a volunteer serving with General Giacomo Medici. The legion under the general’s command was deployed to defend Villa Benedetti-Giraud, better known as Villa del Vascello, the last bastion still under Republican control that could halt the advance of the French army. But the legion’s heroic resistance crumbled in the face of the superior might of the enemy, which ambushed and routed General Medici’s troops near Villa Barberini.
Two years later, the painter commemorated the bloody conflicts that ended in the legion’s retreat and Giuseppe Garibaldi’s flight from Rome in a canvas entitled View of Porta di San Pancrazio in Rome, (1851, Milan, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana [2]), which he displayed at the Brera Academy’s annual exhibition. The success of the work and the public interest it aroused justified a series of paintings, including the work in the Cariplo Collection, which were also inspired by recent Roman events. In the painting under examination Induno depicts a Garibaldian volunteer keeping watch on high ground and gazing keenly at the horizon where, in the warm morning light, General Medici’s troops are lining up beneath the Italian flag and probably preparing to engage the French. The choice of a minor figure like the young volunteer, who does not forego his pipe while on lookout, enables the painter to translate the historical episode into an ordinary everyday image. Here genre painting becomes the narration of the Risorgimento events through the faces of the most ordinary people and places, which proved to be extremely popular with the public during the decades in question. This produced an acclaimed cycle of works that are well represented in the Cariplo Collection, which holds A Follower of Garibaldi Bids Farewell and The Volunteers Bid Farewell, and also The Return of the Wounded Soldier and Bulletin Announcing the Peace of Villafranca by Gerolamo’s brother Domenico Induno, and The Wounded Soldier by Angelo Trezzini. |
Date |
1851 date QS:P571,+1851-00-00T00:00:00Z/9 |
Medium |
oil on paper medium QS:P186,Q296955;P186,Q11472,P518,Q861259 |
Dimensions |
height: 40 cm (15.7 in); width: 28 cm (11 in) dimensions QS:P2048,40U174728 dimensions QS:P2049,28U174728 |
Collection |
institution QS:P195,Q2054135 |
Current location |
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Accession number |
FCIP0083 |
Object history |
- 1993: acquired by
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Inscriptions |
Signature bottom left:
G. Induno/ 1851
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Notes |
Laura Casone, Artgate Fondazione Cariplo |
References |
- Dipinti del XIX secolo, asta 852, Finarte, Milano 1993, n. 39, p. 27, ill.
- Paola Zatti, Gerolamo Induno, Sentinella, in Sergio Rebora, a cura di, Le collezioni d’arte. L’Ottocento, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde, Milano 1999, n. 129, p. 215, ill.
- Maurizio Bertolotti, Gerolamo Induno, La sentinella, in La nazione dipinta. Storia di una famiglia tra Mazzini e Garibaldi, catalogo della mostra, Mantova, Fruttiere di Palazzo Te, 14 ottobre 2007-13 gennaio 2008, Skira, Milano 2007, n. 30, p. 109, ill.
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Source/Photographer |
Artgate Fondazione Cariplo |
Permission (Reusing this file) |
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