David Giuseppe Sani (Florence, 1828 – 1914), The Suitor

David Giuseppe Sani (Florence, 1828 – 1914)

The suitor

Oil on canvas, 66 x 51 cm

With frame, 85 x 70 cm

Signed lower right “D. Sani”

David Giuseppe Sani (Florence, 1828 – 1914) represents an emblematic figure of Florentine genre painting in the second half of the nineteenth century, a period in which the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, having freed itself from rigid neoclassicism, opened its doors to a descriptive virtuosity and an anecdotal historical reenactment that had a great impact on international collectors. Trained in the Tuscan academic environment, Sani developed a marked propensity for costume painting at an early age, distinguishing himself within the historic Exhibitions of the Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts of Florence for the formal restraint, refinement and impeccable technical mastery with which he knew how to stage domestic intimacy and the Rococo taste. His painting fits perfectly into that successful nineteenth-century movement — similar to European authors such as Ernest Meissonier or Arturo Ricci — which looked at the eighteenth century not with a celebratory or monumental intent, but rather with a vein of graceful and affectionate nostalgia for the elegance of the past. Sani's stylistic language is characterised by a pictorial conduction of extraordinary analyticality and clarity: the chromatic texture is applied with short, fluid and almost invisible brushstrokes, aimed at restoring a smooth brilliance to the surfaces and modulating the light in such a way as to highlight the tactile consistency of the materials with true Flemish flair. In its interiors, the light glides across the surfaces with extreme softness, lingering on the rigid and shiny folds of the silk brocades, the softness of the bobbin lace, the metallic reflections or the warmth of the patinated wood of the furnishings. In the canvas under examination, signed at the bottom right, the painter stages a delightful episode of eighteenth-century gallantry, orchestrating a narrative that is at once theatrical and intimate. A young lady is reclining on a padded armchair while interrupting her sewing or embroidery work, as suggested by the wicker basket on the floor filled with scraps of fabric, lace, and the spool of thread with a pin that has fallen to the floor. Behind her, a suitor in elegant gala attire—a red jacket embroidered in gold, a powdered wig, and precious lace pads—approaches her with a solicitous and gallant manner, delicately placing his arm around her shoulder and holding her in a gesture of affectionate seduction. The lady welcomes attention with an attitude of quiet complicity, bowing her head with a subdued smile and a slight blush on her cheeks that reveals the painter's acute introspective sensitivity in the rendering of affections and physiognomies. The scenographic structure of the work is expertly balanced: the presence of the screen in the background closes the composition, isolating the two protagonists in a private and protected dimension, while the large dark wooden wardrobe gives solidity to the perspective structure of the room. Sani demonstrates exceptional technical mastery in the play of chromatic contrasts, making the bright red of the man's livery and the iridescent blue of the woman's satin cape shine over her dress with thin pink stripes. Among his most representative and paradigmatic works of this successful thematic trend are The Toast and The Suitor, both in a private collection, compositions in which we find intact the same ability to place characters in eighteenth-century costume within finely described historical settings.

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