GIUSEPPE ZAIS (Forno di Canale, 1709 - Treviso, 1781) Landscape with figures Oil on canvas, 58.5X72.5 cm Ascribable to the painter's maturity, the work displays an elegant pictorial draftsmanship, particularly for the airy luminosity and the description of nature, realised with loose, light brushstrokes. Biographical information on the artist is scarce. He was registered with the Fraglia of Venetian painters from 1748 until 1768, but his apprenticeship in Venice probably took place as early as 1740, the year he moved to the lagoon city. His first steps took place under the guidance of Michele Marieschi and Francesco Zuccarelli, acquiring the idyllic tones that he elaborated with personal sensitivity, expressing a painting of particular atmospheric lightness, without however renouncing a narrative spontaneity. Returning to the chronology of his conspicuous catalogue, of which only the Paesaggio con fontana classica (Landscape with a Classical Fountain) in the Accademia di Venezia bears a certain date of 1765, one is inclined to think that the canvas under examination is to be dated between the seventh and eighth decade, when, having by then completely freed himself from his masters, he enjoyed extraordinary collecting success. It was precisely in the 1960s that Zais produced the happiest evidence of his activity, lightening his palette and proposing a personal interpretation of Arcadian landscape painting. Reference bibliography: E. Martini, La Pittura del Settecento Veneto, Udine 1982, p. 542, fig. 774 Marco Ricci e il paesaggio veneto del Settecento, exhibition catalogue edited by D. Succi and A. Delneri, Milan 1993, ad vocem