Mosè di Giosué Bianchi (Monza 1840-1904 Milan)

This atmospheric watercolour is a study for an oil painting, signed and dated ‘86’, of which the present whereabouts are unknown (P. Biscottini, op. cit., no. 444). Although this sheet is not dated, it must have been executed in the same year or shortly before. Bianchi captures here an ephemeral moment of elegant women strolling on a boulevard with a group of peasants to the left. With fluid and fresh pools of wash the artist creates a dreamlike scene of a summer’s day in a composition reminiscent of Japanese woodcuts; these were often rectangular in shape and used bold pictorial elements like, in this case, the boat in the centre of the composition (omitted in the painting).