Eugenio Agneni
Diptych “The Cries of Fire”; “The Voices of the Stream”
1865-1871 c.

About the Item

Artist: Eugenio Agneni Title: Diptych “The Cries of Fire”; “The Voices of the Stream”, c. 1865-71. Medium: oil on canvas mounted on wood, cm 128 x 60 each Signature: Signed at the bottom on the base of the frames provenance: Marquis Corsi Salviati; Rome, private collection The two canvases mounted on wooden supports are clearly attributable to Eugenio Agneni (Sutri, 1816 - Rome, 1879), a paradigmatic figure of an Italian painter of the Risorgimento years who combined a successful and continuous international artistic activity with an intense political and military activity, starting from the Roman effervescence following the election of Pius IX to the Mentana expedition and then in the early years of Rome as capital city, a period in which he held various administrative posts. The clarity of attribution of the works derives not only from the large central inscription inserted in the elaborate neo-Gothic scenic layout that encloses the two works in a diptych, but also from the direct kinship that links them to the cycle of frescoes painted between 1865 and 1868 for Marquis Antonio Maria Corsi Salviati in the reception hall of the family villa in Sesto Fiorentino. Agneni resided more or less permanently in the Florentine area between 1863 and 1871 after a phase of European-wide wanderings that began at the end of the Roman republican experience of 1849, in which he was involved to the point of having to hide for some time from July of that year at the home of Marquis Salviati, whom he therefore already knew before his subsequent move to Florence. The need to stay away from Italy, as well as his connections with Mazzinian exiles and evidently also a proven ability to reinvent himself in different cultural spheres allowed Agneni to profitably frequent the artistic scenes of London and Paris, cities in which he lived and worked, obtaining commissions of absolute importance (he decorated several rooms at Buckingham Palace, the Covent Garden Opera and the Louvre), and presenting his works at the Royal Academy in London. Therefore, if we are to keep faith with the remarks of his friend Luigi Calamatta ("you are full of money") and the frequency with which Giuseppe Mazzini asked Agneni to contribute financially to the activities of Giovane Italia or other similar initiatives, the news recorded by Martina Salza that the execution of the works in Sesto Fiorentino was financed by the artist himself as a tribute of friendship towards Marquis Corsi Salviati acquires greater substance. Of the articulated overall iconography, which includes references to the 'Hours', 'Iris', 'Day', 'Night' and the signs of the zodiac, the oil diptych recalls the four frescoes on the longitudinal walls dedicated to the elements and especially 'Fire' and 'Water', thus leaving room to assume that a second diptych dedicated to 'Air' and 'Earth' may have existed. The unfortunate dispersion of numerous and potentially decisive sections of the Guicciardini Corsi Salviati Archive on deposit at the State Archives in Florence unfortunately does not allow for the reconstruction of binding information on the cycle of frescoes, the diptych and the value to be attributed to the two ecphrastic compositions on the canvas and signed by Agneni himself. The fact that both refer to the painter's complex challenge in having to depict the contrasting impulses of natural impetuses seems, in any case, consonant with the particularity of the Corsi Salviati commission, which, as mentioned, was largely financed by the painter himself and, presumably, also had a strong thematic-structural imprint. There is, for instance, the possibility that the diptych represents a sort of private synthesis of the frescoes, a suggestion suggested by the evident process of erotic emendation brought to the iconography in the monumental version. Note in this sense the presence of the two nude, reclining water lilies on top of the waterfall and at the bottom of the stream (this one replaced by a swallow) in the painting "The Voices of the Stream", as well as the gender transposition of the figure tearing up the earth in "The Cries of Fire", and finally the frequent covering of the breasts by various expedients in both scenes of the frescoes. More solidly tangible is instead the lively expressive ductility displayed here by Agneni, which has re-emerged in these works thanks to a skilful restoration that restores to study a rarely-valued essay on this specific stylistic phase of an artist who, although little known and studied, in fact traversed a substantial portion of the cultural and political arteries of her era with acknowledged charisma. Converging on the two canvases are the intense academic training phase in Rome as well as the shrewd intuition of the connoisseur of the rule who came into contact with even strong linguistic innovations but knew how to render them in a translation suitable for a less up-to-date public. In this superimposition between the Minardian candour of the anatomies and a general expressive voluptuousness that can recall both the more mature phases of French academic romanticism and a certain pre-Raphaelite chromatic verve, Agneni effectively testifies to a linguistic ductility that we recognise in the very lyrics that accompany the diptych: "Cercando le forme dell'acqueo elemento \ Fra vivi colori l'artista ha un concerto \ Finche la mano che s'agita e crea \ Risponde al concerto l'immagin trovò" [from "Le Voci del Torrente"]. Tiziano Antognozzi condition: generally good condition. The left panel has been re-stained and has a restoration in the lower part due to a cut in the canvas, there are no colour fades. The other panel is in first cloth.

Creator:

Eugenio Agneni (1816 - 1879, Italian)

Creation Year:

1865-1871 c.

Dimensions:

Height: 50.4 in (128 cm)Width: 23.63 in (60 cm)

Medium:

Oil

Movement & Style:

Romantic

Period:

1860-1869