Marine

This painting came to the Academy in 1753 together with the pendant representing a stormy seascape by Tempesta, thanks to the bequest of Fabio Rosa, confirming the spiritual and stylistic bond between the two painters. The work was long attributed to Vernet, a pupil of Manglard, and reassigned to Manglard in 1974 by Stefano Susinno. The certainty of the attribution comes from its citation found in the inventory of Rosa’s estate, which was compiled when the artist was still alive and particularly active in the Academy. The low horizon recalls the tradition of Nordic landscape, while the suffused brightness that blurs the scene into the distance, the balance in the composition and the slender figures with a characteristic reddish-brown complexion are typical of Manglard. The marked backlight effect throws into evidence the realistic description of the elements in the foreground, spread out over a small stretch of coastline, typical of Manglard. Even the cliff on the left, the building on a receding plane, the boat’s reflection on the water are distinctive motifs of the artist’s prolific oeuvre. [G.D.M.]