Antonio Zona, Homme à barbe, Oil on Canvas, Framed

Antonio Zona, born in 1814 in Gambarare, a district of Mira and died in February 1892 in Rome, is an Italian painter, active in a style combining neo-classicism and the romantic style.

He attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. He studied there under the direction of Ludovico Lipparini. One of his colleagues is Pompeo Marino Molmenti. with the decline of neo-classicism, the Academy was in full turmoil in the face of evolving painting styles. In Venice, Zona became friends with the followers of Scapigliatura, Bartolomeo Granelli and Ippolito Caffi, frequenting the same caffè Calcina on the Zattere. Among Zona’s mentors and teachers in later years were Odorico Politi, Michelangelo Grigoletti and Pietro Selvatico.

In 1857, he accepted a commission from the Austrian monarch Franz Joseph for a painting depicting The Meeting of Titian and Veronese at the Ponte della Paglia (Galleria della Accademia). The painting is praised for its evocation of the style of a classic painting by Titian.

In 1859, Zona declined the next important commission, from Prince Maximilian, for a painting entitled L’ingresso degli austriaci a Venezia. In 1860 he moved to Milan for a few years and instead painted a few canvases with a patriotic theme, including Venezia che desolata abbraccia la liberata Milano (1860) and Un canto funebre (1862) alluding to the funeral of Count Cavour. These paintings were less well received, for example by Pompeo Molmenti in 1903, because they seemed limited to echoing ancient styles. A new era in Italy is felt to require a new style.

Zona returned to Venice for most of his life. He is eclectic, painting genre scenes, history, landscapes and portraits in oils and watercolors. For the Camera dei Deputati, he painted a portrait of King Umberto in 1880; he also painted a portrait of the honorable Giovanni Battista Vare and, in 1883, exhibited a portrait of a young woman in Milan. Among his landscapes are a Il tramonto dalla Villa Medici di Roma and a large number of vedute from Venice and other places in Italy. He also painted an Ophelia exhibited in 1884 in Turin; and Maria la simpatica, a peasant woman, exhibited in 1881 in Milan. Antonio Zona is a knight and official of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus. Original frame
Plaster and gilded wood frame
66 x 59 x 9 cm

Fragile frame for transport.
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issues arising from misattribution