Alessandro Milesi (1856 - 1945) Idyll, circa 1882 Oil on canvas 85 x 106 cm Signature: lower right, 'To Milesi' Other inscriptions: lower right, on the recto, 'Venezia' (Venice) Distinctive elements: label from the exhibition 'Giacomo Favretto. Venezia fascino e seduzione', Rome Chiostro del Bramante, 2010 Provenance: Germany, private collection; Milan, private collection Bibliography: Nico Stringa, "Luigi Nono", in Giuseppe Pavanello, Nico Stringa, eds. Il trionfo del colore", Treviso, 2004, pp. 62, 69, fig. 29; Luisa Turchi, "Alessandro Milesi (1856-1945). L'anima nel colore, l'eleganza nel ritratto', Treviso, 2010, pp. 16-17; Paolo Serafini, ed., 'Giacomo Favretto. Venezia, fascino e seduzione', exhibition catalogue, Milan, 2010, pp. 171, 187, no. 72; Angelo Enrico, Elisabetta Staudacher, ed., 'La Venezia di Ciardi e Favretto. Il silenzio della laguna e le ciacole della città', exhibition catalogue, Milan, 2017, p. 120, table 17 Exhibitions: 'Giacomo Favretto. Venezia, fascino e seduzione', Rome, Chiostro del Bramante, Venice, Museo Correr, 2010; 'La Venezia di Ciardi e Favretto. Il silenzio della laguna e le ciacole della città", Modenafiere, Modena, 2017 Constraints: The painting has free circulationPreservation status. Support: 95% Conservation status. Surface: 90% (reduced paintwork recovery) Everyday life among the canals, calli and campielli of Venice is the protagonist of the art of Alessandro Milesi, a great interpreter, together with Giacomo Favretto, of lagoon genre painting. Already at his debut at the Promotrice di Venezia in 1878, the artist, in his early twenties, distinguished himself as one of the major interpreters of the renewal of art in a modern sense, until his affirmation in 1882 with 'El fio de mi fio', a work with a dialectal title that entered the Quirinale collections. This was the period in which Milesi opened up to international taste through collectors and artists, especially Anglo-Saxon ones living in the lagoon city. Women's handicrafts, from pearl threading to bobbin embroidery, particularly caught the public's interest. It is no coincidence that in 1876 Cecil van Haanen's painting 'The Pearl Stringers' was awarded a prize at the Salon, a widespread theme that was also taken up between 1880 and 1882 by John Singer Sargent. In contact with the more advanced currents of the international market, Milesi lightened his palette and alternated sketchily painted parts of the canvas with details rendered in brushstrokes. The painting 'Idyll', placed by Stella Seitun around 1882 (S. Seitun, 'Alessandro Milesi. Il vivo senso di venezianità", in "La Venezia di Ciardi e Favretto", cit., pp. 65-79), which belongs to the "vein of courtship scenes [...], Favretto's favourite and repeatedly tackled by Milesi and other contemporaries, with the aim of revisiting the gallant atmosphere of 18th century Venice, from Longhi to Tiepolo, with more or less flair but always a certain dose of irony" (S. Seitun, cit., pp. 73-74). In an interior, a commoner woos a young woman intent on embroidering a white bridal veil on a lace pillow, the refinement of which contrasts with the modesty of the setting with its cracked plaster and terracotta floor. Milesi lingers over the details, adding to the central scene the still lifes of plates and ceramics that can be glimpsed above and inside the cabinet on the left and the basket of cloths placed on the table on the right. The only decoration on the wall are engravings possibly from an illustrated magazine. The man accompanies his words with his hand placed over his heart, the woman bows her head slightly, offering her ear to the flattery. The sobriety of the women's clothing, whose pastel colours harmonise with the white of the lace, is contradicted by the flirtatious element of the black shoes and red stockings. Teresa Sacchi Lodispoto