JOHANN ANTON EISMANN (1604-1698)

A NOCTURNE CLASSICAL SCENE
Oil on canvas
29 x 49 cm
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY
E.A. Safarik, 'Johann Anton Eismann', in Saggi e Memorie di storia dell'arte, vol. 10 (1976), pp. 63, 65-78, 123-140
 
 
 
 
The present work is attributed on the basis of its very close similarities to four paintings by Eismann, an Austrian artist who was active in Italy throughout the course of the 17th century. The first, a pair, were sold at Uppsala Auktions, Uppsala, 13-16.06.2023, Lot 584 (with the attribution previously provided by Eric Turquin in 1997); the third and fourth are now in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden (inv. no. 2014 & 5). The most pertinent similarities are our painting's composition, with outsize classical stele and miniature figures, and dark skies run through with bright pinks and blues that dominate the upper half. 
 
 
Eduard Safarik, in his scholarly analysis of Eismann's career and output, hypothesised that Eismann may have been a collaborator of Giovanni Ghisolfi's, and that the two might perhaps have been contemporaries in the studio of Salvator Rosa. Whatever the case, Eismann was active in Rome in the mid-17th century, and later moved to Venice, where he had an oft-overlooked influence on the style of the generation of artists that followed, in particular Marco Ricci. Eismann specialised in decorative (but skilful) paintings of ports, battles and seascapes, and his works can be found in the inventories of numerous important Venetian and Roman collections of his time. He was unusual as an Austrian artist painting in a decidedly Italian vernacular, but it appears that he assimilated very effectively, marrying a Venetian and naming his son Carlo, and earned himself a considerable reputation in his adopted home: the biographer and art historian Bartolommeo dal Pozzo described him in 1718 as Pittor celebre paesista di Salisburg habitante in Venezia. [1]