Arnaldo Ferraguti

(Italian, 1862-1925)

Carnival, Piazza della Scala, Milan

Footnotes

Provenance
Acquired at auction by the family of the present owner in the late 1950s
Private collection, Italy

Arnaldo Ferraguti was born in Ferrara in 1862. From 1879 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples under Domenico Morelli (1826-1901) having moved to the city with his family. His early work tended to be historical, but in 1883 having met painter Francesco Paolo Michetti (1851-1929) at The International Exhibition in Rome, he turned increasingly to subjects drawn from everyday life which he produced in both oil and pastel.

Through his friendship with Michetti, Ferraguti met the brothers Giuseppe and Emilio Treves, the Milanese publishers, and he began illustrating magazines and books such as The Heart of Edmondo De Amicis and The Stories of Verga. He settled in Milan where he married Olga Treves, the granddaughter of his employers. In the 1890s the couple moved to Pallanza where they enjoyed the lively social life of the salons of Villa San Remigio and Villa Cordelia. Here Ferraguti built himself a mansion with wonderful views of the lake.

In 1905 he collaborated again with Michetti working on the sets for The Daughter of Jorio D'Annunzio, an ambitious play by Gabriele D'Annunzio.

Ferraguti is probably best remembered for his masterpiece of 1890, Alla Vanga (Museo del Paesaggio, Verbania-Pallanza), a huge canvas nearly 3 x 6 metres, which showed a line of barefoot peasants working the soil with spades. The picture received massive critical acclaim. Ferraguti died suddenly in 1925.