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Works from Bruno Mantura collection

Tuesday 23 March 2021, 03:00 PM • Rome

5

Vitale Sala

(Cernusco Lombardone 1803 - Milano 1835)

The death of Caesar, About 1820-1835

Estimate

€ 200 - 300

Sold

€ 640

The price includes buyer's premium

Information

pencil and ink on paper on cardboard
20.5 x 30.8 cm
signed lower right: Sala Vitale

Exhibition

Rome, Prencipe Gallery, 2019.

Literature

Un coup de coeur. Graphics between Italy and France from the Bruno Mantura collection , exhibition catalog edited by T. Sacchi Lodispoto, S. Spinazzè, Rome, Galleria Prencipe, 14 February - 16 March 2019, p. 66 n. 12.

There is very little news about the artist, who died at the age of thirty-two. Author of portraits, historical, literary and religious subjects between neoclassicism and romantic taste, Vitale Sala trained in Milan between the Brera Academy and Pelagio Palagi's studio. Between 1816 and 1823 he participated in academic competitions and in 1823 was awarded with the work Dante meets Paolo e Francesca (Milan, Brera Academy). He was mainly active as a frescante, working essentially between Piedmont and Lombardy: in Milan, in the church of San Vincenzo with Palagio Palagi, in the basilica of Santo Stefano and in the church of San Nazaro (1820-1830); in Novara, in the Cathedral (1831-1834); again with Pelagi, in the Savoy residences of Stupinigi and in Racconigi (1833-1835). The subject of the study in question is identifiable with the death of Caesar, of which he respects the iconography of the group of robes who eagerly stabs the man already lying on the ground. However, an inconsistency should be noted in the figure of Caesar, depicted with a long beard and with the crown and scepter with an eagle, symbols of imperial power which the dictator had not been awarded for life. Furthermore, the long beard and flowing hair are relevant to the traditional image of Jupiter rather than that of Caesar.