Attributed to Francesco Simonini

Attributed to FRANCESCO SIMONINI (Parma, 1686 - Venice, 1753).
"Battle."
Oil on canvas.
Measurements: 48.5 x 65 cm, 58 x 74.5 cm (frame).

A disciple of Spolverini in Parma and of Francesco Monti, Simonini lived in Florence, where he became directly acquainted with Borgognone's battle painting. He traveled to Rome and Bologna and settled in Venice around 1740, where he appears enrolled in the brotherhood of painters of the city between 1740 and 1745. He was the painter of Marshal Schulenberg, who took him with him on his military campaigns in Turkey. Among his works, the six monochrome frescoes of the Villa Pisani in Stra are worth mentioning as exemplary pieces of the battle genre. In some of his works there is a trace of Flemish and Dutch influence, although his style evidences, fundamentally, his contact with Venetian landscape painting, of contemporary artists of Tiepolo or Zuccarelli. Among his disciples are Giuseppe Zais, but the most significant was also a painter of battles, Francesco Casanova.