Recto/Verso: Palace/Armorial Cartouche

Recto: Courtyard of a Palace
Verso: Study of an Armorial Cartouche of a Bishop or Cardinal

Framed: 19.75" w x 16.5" h

The supremacy of opera, lo spettacolo, in the court and public theaters of eighteenth century Italy was supported by the incredible sets created by a group of familial dynasties, amongst which the Galliari were prominent, especially in Milan and Turin. Hailing from Adorno, a regional town in the Piedmont, the Galliari family was known throughout much of Europe, working in Vienna, Paris and Berlin. Aside from commissions completed for the more important theaters in foreign courts and the larger Italian capitals, the Galliari also supplied the many regional theaters, those in Alessandria, Bergamo, Cremona, Lodi, Monza, Padova and Vercelli, amongst others, with set designs from their bottega della scene, a vast stock of theatrical drawings typologically categorized.
Fabrizio Galliari followed his brother, Bernardino, to Milan, where he studied stage design. Although the early work of the two brothers is sometimes difficult to distinguish, Fabrizio soon focused more on architecture, ephemeral and real, while Bernardino concentrated on interior decoration. Working for ecclesiastic and aristocratic patrons throughout northern Italy, Fabrizio completed the trompe l’oeil dome of the Vercelli Cathedral, decorated the castle of Les Marches in Savoy, and painted a triumphal arch celebrating the arrival in Venice of Maria Amalia Walpurga of Poland, the future wife Prince Charles of Sicily (later Charles III of Spain). As a stage designer, Fabrizio worked primarily in Milan and Turin, as well as in Innsbruck, Paris and Vienna. With Bernardino, he developed a scheme of spatial composition, based on linear perspective construction that was still unusual at this time and became identified as the Galliari style. Contemporary critics, such as Algarotti and his disciple Milizia, praised the scenic style proposed by the fratelli Galliari, namely the use of noble forms from antiquity, facile and precise draftsmanship, strong color with contrasting light and shade, and naturalistic scale appropriate to contemporary aesthetic standards.