Young woman milking a goat

Francesco Londonio (1723–1783) was an Italian painter, engraver and scenographer, active mainly in Milan and working in a late-Baroque or Rococo style which was always pervaded by realism. Londonio trained as a painter under Ferdinando Porta and Giovanni Battista Sassi and studied engraving with Benigno Bossi in Milan. He is best known for his paintings and endearing etchings of rustic and pastoral landscapes and subjects, with both animals and peasants playing a dominant role over the landscape. This focus on genre themes was popular among the wealthy patrons of the time, especially in Northern Italy.

Londonio is also known for his scenography. An example, of this poorly conserved art form that still exists is a nativity scene using cut wooden shapes, for the church of San Marco in Milan. The effect is a cheaper version of the naturalistic Sacri Monti scenes, which involved painted stucco statuary. The work at San Marco prompted Empress Maria Theresa of Austria to appoint Londonio as art designer for La Scala, the legendary Milanese opera house.

Londonio spent his life in Milan and died there in 1783. Despite his artistic prowess, relatively little has been published about him. Art historian Roberta J. Olson admires Londonio’s ‘sympathetic portrayal of animals and their co-existence with human beings in serenely simple compositions which are at the same time realistic, reflecting his position on the cusp of the change resulting from the Enlightenment’.

Te Papa currently has 19 etchings by Londonio in its collection, all depictions of animals and peasants in Italianate landscapes, and all but one of them presented to the Colonial Museum in 1869 by Bishop Ditlev Monrad. This print is the exception. It is mounted in the so-called King George album of prints, which was purchased by the Dominion Museum in 1910. The etching is the title page of a series of 13 pastoral prints dedicated to 'Al Nobile Signor Dundas Cavagliere Inglese' ('the Noble English Gentleman Cavaliere Mr Dundas'), and humbly hoping that the prints that followed would be of an acceptably high quality and offered with profound respect'. It depicts a girl or very young woman engaged in milking a goat, with huddled sheep seated either side of her. Another slightly older woman with a serious expression approaches the group, holding a pitcher. The dedicatory inscription above is incorporated into a ruined wall.

Sources:

British Museum Collection online, https://britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3397842&partId=1&searchText=1853%2c0 813.122&page=1

Wikipedia, ‘Francesco Londonio', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Londonio

Roberta J. Olson, ‘Review: Francesco Londonio’, Print Quarterly, 13, 1 (1996), pp. 73-76.

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art   April 2019