Oil on canvas, Giuseppe Hainmann (Milan 1828-Alexandria, Egypt)

Oil on canvas depicting a landscape, with a later gilded frame and plaque - relined. Author: Giuseppe Hainmann. Frame dimensions: 45 X 35 cm. Painting dimensions: 30 X 20 cm. Giuseppe Hainmann, son of an officer in the Habsburg army of Bavarian origin, graduated in law from Pavia. During the uprisings of 1848, he participated in the Five Days of Milan, moderately defending independence. He then held government positions in Vienna and Venice before entering the service of the Kingdom of Italy in the Ministry of Justice. Alongside his high official duties, he nurtured a passion for painting, a common association at the time. After studying at Brera, he settled in Florence and then in Rome, regularly exhibiting from the mid-1850s until the unification of Italy. His painting reflects the influences of the various regional schools encountered during his travels: the sense of nature of the Piedmontese painters blends with the attention to colour and realism of the Tuscan artists. These influences are evident in the works created during his 1869 journey to Greece, Asia Minor, and the Holy Land. This first trip was followed by a six-year stay in Egypt, at the court of the Khedive in Cairo, where he remained as a member of the International Reform Tribunal and as a division head within the Egyptian administration. His works from these years, not intended for exhibition, constitute an important historical testimony, clearly documentary in nature. In summary, they appear as true pictorial reports, composed of works that are not devoid of lyricism and great visual richness, immediate yet filled with emotion and bathed in light.