Garibaldian burial

This indoor scene was executed in Florence after 1862 and was probably shown in the palace saloon of 1866 Liardo later known as the Garibaldian painter enlisted as a red shirt in May 1860 together with other Sicilian artists Francesco Lojacono, Vincenzo Ragusa and Ettore Ximenes. This unusually large painting is Liardo’s masterpiece. The composition and setting are similar to the paintings of interiors by Florentine artists in which we also we also find the full crinoline skirts of the two protagonists. The artist in fact was a patron of the café Michelangelo where he was in contact with painters in the macchiaioli movement. Beside the garibaldian heroes coffin weep two women the heads close together in the pose of moving solice. The highly ambitious work was clearly inspired by the regimento as the word patria, homeland on the wall testifies and it includes patriotic themes in the genre paintings so beloved by a certain type of bourgeois clients thus emerging as a great historical painting.