Portrait of a young architect

Bibliography: Catalogo dell’Asta, Milan, Gallerie Geri, October 1978, n. 710.

Provenance: Milan, Galleria Geri

Notes: The attribution to Appiani Jr. was confirmed by a report written by Professor Mazzocca in 200l, as well as a letter of interest from the Civic Art Collection of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, also dated 2001.

Between the 1940s and 50s, Appiani Junior’s production focuses more on the portrait genre, as demonstrated by the figures of Luigi Abbondio Ferrario for the Quadreria dell’Ospedale Maggiore (collection of the portraits of the most generous donors to the hospital) in Milan, and of Count Luigi Porro Lambertenghi, a painting currently preserved in the Museo di Arte Moderna in Milan. In terms of compositional balance, mastery of colour and formal confidence, the Ritratto di giovane architetto can certainly be placed alongside these well-known portraits. The elements of the architect are clearly visible in the foreground: the compass on the left, the drawing board with a pencil in his hand resting on a piece of paper while the young man is absorbed in his work, distracted only for a moment by the attention of the painter who is portraying him.

The entire legacy of Francesco Hayez is contained in this spontaneous pose and in his ability to concentrate the reflection of an entire epoch in a single figure. It is a composed portrait in which one perceives the introspective intensity of the individual portrayed and his social status, rendered through the refined details of his clothing and the surrounding environment. By now far from the principled, idealising and celebratory approach of neoclassical reminiscence, Appiani naturalistically places the architect at his daily workplace, combining the Renaissance iconography of the artist’s portrait with the more modern one of the young and entrepreneurial homo faber fortunae suae (every man is the architect of his own fortune). The well-balanced colour scheme and impeccable formalism, combined with the choice of a solid spatial setting, are in harmony with the choice of a dark background from which the figure emerges, depicted with a few tones that highlight the serene face skilfully illuminated. Stylistic elements that combine perfectly with the portrait of the architect, par excellence a figure demiurgically capable of providing order to chaos, of measuring the world with his working tool, the compass, symbol of rationality and knowledge.

Elena Lago