Antonio Fontanesi, Interieur de Genève, 1850s, Lithograph

This splendid lithograph Interieur de Genève. Fontaine de l'Hotel De Ville is part of the series of 20 prints dedicated to views of the city of Geneva, engraved by the Italian artist Antonio Fontanesi in 1854. The lithograph is applied on a cardboard. The state of preservation of the artwork is excellent, except for a tiny tear of the paper on the higher margin. The signature is engraved on stone on the lower left. At the top of the paper, the inscription “Interieur de Genève”, whilst at the bottom, right below the image, the inscription “JMP Pilet & Cougnard Editeurs Genève”. Below, the writing “Fontaine de l'Hotel De Ville” is printed. Antonio Fontanesi (Reggio Emilia, 1818 - Turin, 1882) was an Italian painter, engraver, teacher, and soldier. He was one of the most important 19th-century Italian painters, though somewhat unknown. After fighting in the I Independence War, he moved to Geneva, where he met local painters that encouraged him to paint landscapes and to open to European artistic novelties. In Paris, he met Corot and Barbizon painters, whilst in London he was influenced by Turner and Constable’s works. He taught in Lucca, Turin, and then in Tokyo. His artworks are very suggestive, rich in lyricism and in melancholic, Romantic and, according to some scholars, Pre-Symbolist atmospheres. Fontanesi observed and studied natural reality to reach a deeper and more universal motive and to find, reflected, human feelings: for this reason, he is considered one of the most emblematic Italian Romantic painters of the European Romantic movement. He was also a fine draftsman and expert etcher: his etchings and lithographs, like in this case, are characterized by the same research on atmospheric values as in painting, with synthetic and essential light effects. This is a beautiful artwork, an excellent engraving, depicting a Romantic view on a peculiar place in Geneva.