Mattia Jona, Master Drawings and Prints, Japanese Prints - Piazzetta Guastalla 5, 20122 Milan, Italy, tel (+39) 02 8053315

GIUSEPPE GRANDI (Ganna 1843 - Ganna 1894) BIMBO CHE DORME
Etching, 1874-1878, Mezzetti 320; a very good impression of this scarce print, on thick wove paper. With large margins, minor faults, generally in very good condition. To the platemark 167 x 117 mm, the entire sheet measuring 246 x 179 mm.
For the activity of Grandi as an etcher, which was seminal in the history of 'acquaforte monotipata' in Lombardy, see Patrizia Foglia, 'Giuseppe Grandi. Note per un catalogo dell'opera grafica', in 'Grafica d'arte', XIV, 56, 2003. See also Patrizia Foglia, 'La poetica del segno in Giuseppe Grandi', in 'Scapigliatura', catalogue of the exhibition, Milan, 2009.

A sculptor who also practiced painting and printmaking, Grandi took courses in drawing and sculpture at the Brera Academy in Milan. In 1867 he moved to the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti in Turin, where one of his teachers, Odoardo Tabacchi, invited him to work in his studio. He returned in Milan in 1869 becoming part of the of the Milanese avant-garde which created the movement known as Scapigliatura. Bohemian in manner and anti-academic in practice, the Scapigliati (the best known are the painters Tranquillo Cremona and Daniele Ranzoni) experimented with light and colour, dissolving mass into atmospheric space, often conveying a sentimental tone. One of Grandi's best known sculptural works is the monument to Cesare Beccaria (1871). His major work, the monument to the 'Cinque Giornate', commemorating the five days of the Milanese revolt against the Austrian army in 1848, occupied him for thirteen years and Grandi died before he could see his work inaugurated.