Design for Stage Set

A design for a stage set, depicting an architectural fantasy with castle, bridge and encampment
Inscribed by the artist in brown ink on upper center of recto: Torino

Giuseppino Galliari was the third generation of the notable family of northern Italian draftsmen, painters and set designers, of which his uncle Bernardino and his father, Fabrizio were the most famous. Bernardino was official set designer for the Teatro Regio in Turin, but also worked in Milan and Berlin, where he was briefly the resident designer in the court of Frederick the Great. Fabrizio was active in Milan, Turin, Innsbruck, Paris and Vienna. Like his father, Giuseppino was active as a set designer in Turin at the Teatro Regio, and Milan at the Teatro della Scala, where many of his drawings are preserved at the Museo Teatrale della Scala. Working in artistic tradition established by his father and uncle, with whom he often collaborated throughout his career, Giuseppino was also influenced by the work of Ferdinando Galli Bibiena, the great Emilian stage designer. The style of Domenico Fossati, with its Venetian mood, is also felt in some of Giuseppino’s designs. Also, in his depiction of shadowy prisons and monumental palaces, Galliari owes an unmistakable artistic debt to Piranesi and his architectural prints. Giuseppino was active until at least 1795, the date of his last known works, namely sets designs for the Bergamo stage.