#411 • Arcadian landscape at sunset

This work, which, with the ideal pendant, is placed in the "Hall of the Falsario" crowning the Luzzetti collection, has been the subject of an articulate attributional querelle.

 

In the collection's catalog, the canvas was erroneously attributed to Alessandro Maffei, a Sienese painter who would be the author of the other Landscape with Ruderi in the same room.

 

The misunderstanding stemmed from the fact that the canvases were, at some point in their lives, interchanged in the frame that bore the attributive labels of "Maffei" and "Markò".

 

This confusion was resolved only when the works were allowed to be examined closely and when subsequent restorations brought out the signatures of the two artists.

 

Arcadian Landscape at Sunset is signed and dated "C. Markò 1875" eliminating any further doubt as to the true executing hand.

 

This does not detract from the fact that we are in front of a luminous landscape defined by skillful brushstrokes that describe with intimate sentimentality a place very close to the daily life of the artist working, at the same time as his colleague Dario Maffei, in the Tuscan area.