Reading a Letter from the Camp

This work is a smaller replica dated 1867 of the painting entitled Reading a Letter from the Camp (Milan, Accademia di Brera), for which the painter won the Mylius Prize in the competition organized by the Brera Academy in 1861. The subject is described in detail in the document in the Academy archive: a Lombardy peasant woman – mother of a volunteer in the southern army – and her family are listening to the village priest reading a letter from her son. While the woman is hanging on the priest’s every word and thanking God for having saved her son and for the success of the military campaigns, a little girl is showing the priest’s relative the photo of her brother that came with the letter. The closest model for this canvas, replicated in 1867, is The Letter by Domenico Induno (formerly in the Viansson Ponte Collection), dated 1861, subsequently reproduced in different variants. Trezzini, however, introduces a novel element by setting the scene in the house of the village priest, with a portrait of the king and a map of Italy on the wall. By doing this he avoids the polemical anticlerical stance of the Risorgimento struggles, suggesting the idea of the social reconciliation after Unification. Popular enthusiasm about the recent victory in the second war of independence contributed to the work’s success when it first appeared in 1861 at the Esposizione di Belle Arti di Brera, together with other patriotic canvases by the artist, which encouraged him to make subsequent replicas. In fact, another version of the same subject entitled The Letter from the Camp was shown at the Genoa Società Promotrice di Belle Arti in 1865 and offered for sale for the sum of 160 Lire. The Genoa event was an important opportunity to exhibit for the painter who, between 1864 and 1873, regularly showed some of his most popular works that sold well, such as Taking Up Arms, 1862 (Milan, Accademia di Brera), Running Away from Boarding School (episode from 1859), 1865, which can be identified as Little Patriots (Montecatini Terme, Pistoia, Bentivegna Collection), and At the End of School, 1869, also in the Collection. These subjects generally inspired by the events of the Risorgimento document how the painter gradually broke away from the influence of Domenico Induno, whom he diligently imitated, to develop a personal style that favoured themes of childhood and a study of reality. The indication of the artist’s city, “Milan”, alongside his signature and the inscription in English on the back suggest that this high-quality copy may have been commissioned, perhaps in the emotional wake of events linked to the 1866 third war of independence. Moreover, the Italian political exiles who had gained the sympathy and support of local cultural circles frequented the English milieu that centred around Giuseppe Mazzini. It is not surprising that Trezzini’s success extended beyond national frontiers, since he had achieved a certain reputation abroad with the Battle of S. Fermo perhaps to be identified as Garibaldi’s Soldiers Fighting at San Fermo (Turin, Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento Italiano), shown at the International Exhibition in Dublin in 1865. This painting provides direct evidence of the artist’s commitment to the Risorgimento, since he was a soldier- painter and a volunteer in the 1859 second war of independence.