Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 105. (Budapest, 2006)

ANDREA CZÉRE: Giambettino Cignaroli's Drawing of the Virgin and Child in the Budapest Collection: On the Third Centenary of the Artist's Birth

The text of the plaque was the following: "JOSEPH • II • IMP • CAES • AVG • TABULAS • PICTAS • A RTIFICEMOVE • CIGNAROLIUM • VISURUS • AEDEM • H ANC • ADUT • XII • CAL • AUG • MDCCLXIX." Cited by I. Bevilaqua, Memorie della vita di Giambettino Cignaroli eccellente dipintor Veronese, Verona 1771, 44. In addition to the Austrian court, the French, Spanish, Polish and Russian courts also flooded him with commissions, and he worked not only for aristocrats but also for well-to-do citizens and Italian ecclesiastics. Bevilaqua 1771, 45. G. Pompei, Orazione in morte di Giainbettino Cignaroli ed alcune poetiche composizioni sopra lo stesso argomento, Verona 1771, 9. Balestra paid attention to the painter from his youth, in his letters written to Francesco Gabburri, the Florentine writer and collector, he repeatedly referred to his outstanding talent: S. J. Wanna, The Paintings of Giambettino Cignaroli, A Dissertation at the University of Giorgia, Athens 1988, 9798; G. G. Bottari and S. Ticozzi, Raccolta di lettére sulla pittura, scultura edarchitettura, 2, Milan 1822, reprint: Hildesheim and New York 1976, 259-65, 262, 385-87. This situation was mitigated by the recently arranged exhibition in Philadelphia and its catalogue in which Christopher Johns convincingly summed up the present assessment of eighteenth-century Italian art with special regard to Roman art. C. M. S. Johns, "The Entrepôt of Europe: Rome in the Eighteenth Century'', Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, Philadelphia Museum of Art, ed. E. P. Bowron and J. J. Eichel, Philadelphia 2000, 17-43. F. R. Pesenti, "Due momenti dell'attività di G. B. Cignaroli", Arte antica e moderna (January/March 1966), 82. Cignaroli coming from a family of artists received his first artsitic training in the workshop of the Veronese Santo Prunato (1652-1728), later he was influenced by the art of Lodovico Dorigny (1654— 1742), who introduced him to the works of French Classicism and Bolognese Seicento represented by Annibale Carracci and Guido Reni. Through the Veronese Antonio Balestra he became acquainted with Roman Classicism, through the painting of Carlo Maratta. At the same time during his travels in Venice he also drew inspiration from Titian's and Veronese's works especially in regard to his palette and some of his compositional types. Cignaroli founded an artistic academy in his native town, Verona, in which education was modelled on the French academy. At the Academy opened in 1766 and led by the artist, the ideal was to attain gracefulness, harmony, decorum and dignified beauty.