Cesare Maggi

Cesare Maggi’s Quotations

Cesare Maggi is particularly appreciated on the market for his works with mountain subjects, estimated on average between $3,000 and $8,500, but his Divisionist paintings prior to World War I can also exceed $15,000 and reach $30,000 and above, especially if they are large in size.

In fact, the auction record for 2008 is for a large and evocative divisionist canvas dedicated to the mountains, dated 1914. Small-format works are valued between €600 and €2,000. The canvases from the return to order of the 1920s are also highly prized, while prices for works from the subsequent period are lower.

These estimates are entirely indicative and depend on numerous factors: please contact us for an accurate and free estimate.

Biography

Cesare Maggi was born in Rome in 1881, but moved frequently to follow his parents, who were theater actors. In Florence, he began attending Vittorio Matteo Corcos’s atelier, and then moved to Naples to study with Gaetano Esposito, defying his family’s wishes. From his teachers, he undoubtedly inherited a tormented use of color and an interest in studying from life, which he then combined with the attention to worldly themes that he had learned from Corcos.

He made his exhibition debut in 1898 in Florence with …Occasi di Novembre mesti, a canvas inspired by a poem by Carducci, and Almeno c’è il fuoco!, where his stylistic proximity to his master Esposito can be seen.

He then moved to Paris to serve another apprenticeship in the studio of Fernard Cormon, who introduced him to history painting and portraiture, updating his palette with seductive colors. In 1899, he returned to Italy, where he visited an exhibition dedicated to Giovanni Segantini, who had recently passed away and would greatly influence him. He decided to travel to the mountains of the canton of Grisons, to the places Segantini had painted, to study the divisionist technique, a language he would experiment with until 1914.

In 1905, he moved to La Thuile, immortalizing the imposing and evocative mountains of the Aosta Valley in his paintings. The paintings Mattina di festa (Festive Morning), presented in 1905 at the Venice Biennale, La melanconia del sole (The Melancholy of the Sun), exhibited in Milan the following year, and La prima neve (The First Snow) and L’ultimo fieno (The Last Hay), with which he participated in the 1907 Venice Biennale, date from this period.

During these years, the painter signed an agreement with the Galleria di Alberto Grubicy, for which he created divisionist paintings imbued with symbolist suggestions. In 1912, he was invited to the Venice Biennale, where he held a solo exhibition with eighteen paintings, including Ritratto di Nino Oxilia (Portrait of Nino Oxilia), L’alba (Dawn), Sotto la neve (Under the Snow), Le nuvole (The Clouds), A San Mauro in una sera di inverno (At San Mauro on a Winter Evening), Il pastore (The Shepherd), La Riva del carbon (The Charcoal Bank), I casolari che attendono (The Farmhouses Waiting) and La sera di Natale a Courmayeur (Christmas Eve in Courmayeur).

After World War I, he abandoned the divisionist technique and embraced the Return to Order movement, continuing to paint landscapes, but with a naturalistic and traditional approach. During this period, he produced several paintings depicting country concerts and other themes related to Italian art of the 16th and 17th centuries, undertaking the study of the old masters.

In 1922, he presented Abeti sotto la neve (Fir Trees Under the Snow) at the Florence Exhibition, a painting in which his new classical turn was evident, with a more compact use of color. He then participated in the Venice Biennale in 1924 with La signora Gilli Cerutti (Mrs. Gilli Cerutti) and Il montanaro (The Mountain Man). In 1930, he took part in the Sindacale fascista in Rome with Giardino sotto la neve a Bardonecchia (Garden under the Snow in Bardonecchia), La figlia del Podestà (The Podestà’s Daughter) and La via più grande a Bardonecchia (The Biggest Street in Bardonecchia). In the same year, he also exhibited at the Venice Biennale with Il lavoro della terra (The Work of the Land), Il porto di Lerici (The Port of Lerici) and Fra Pisa e Viareggio (Between Pisa and Viareggio). In 1935, he exhibited Estate at the Promotrice in Turin, an allegorical painting with references to Titian’s Venuses, but treated in a contemporary style. In 1941, he took part in his last exhibition before his death, exhibiting Pieve Ligure, La baronessa van Genns, and Camogli in Turin, and Paesaggio alpestre and Il Gran Paradiso da Cogne in Milan. He died in the Piedmontese capital in 1962.