Italian school; XIX century.

Italian school; XIX century.
"Urban scene", 1879.
Oil on canvas.
Presents faults on the canvas.
Dated in the lower left area.
Measurements: 124 x 210 cm; 130 x 216 cm (frame).
This painting attributed to the Italian school of the 19th century is an eloquent example of the bourgeois and costumbrista sensibility that characterized much of the artistic production of the period. The scene takes place in a stately garden, where a group of elegantly dressed women share an afternoon of leisure and sociability, while a young musician, dressed in popular attire, plays a melody with a lute. The whole is organized around a compositional axis centered on the figure of the musician, whose seated position and expressive gesture energize the scene and provide a point of visual and emotional attraction. The classicist architecture of the background, partially covered by vegetation, acts as a symbolic frame of civility and refinement, values that are also transmitted through the delicacy of the furniture, especially the table with glass tray and flasks, and the richness of the textile details.
The treatment of light reveals a remarkable technical mastery: the distribution of shadows and brightness not only confers volume to the figures, but also accentuates the intimate and summery character of the encounter. This work, dated 1879, not only evidences a refined pictorial mastery, but also reflects an idealized view of the daily life of high society, in which music, dress and social relations acquire a symbolic value as elements of cultural identity. The interest in capturing the anecdotal and the amiable, without abandoning academic precision, inscribes this painting within a current that, far from aspiring to the monumental or allegorical, seeks to dignify the everyday by means of a careful and evocative representation. Thus, this piece becomes a visual testimony of an era that found in social and aesthetic harmony a form of affirmation of its own time.