Ernesto Fontana, Between the Two Litigants the Third Enjoys, 1893, Oil on Canvas

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Ernesto Fontana Between the Two Quarrelsome Ones, The Third Enjoys 1893, an oil on canvas painting depicting three children happily … Read more Ernesto Fontana Between the Two Quarrelsome Ones, The Third Enjoys 1893, an oil on canvas painting depicting three children happily playing, rolling among pink flowers. It is signed at the top right by the Milanese artist E. Fontana, Milan 1837 – Cureglia, Switzerland 1918. The lower left edge is signed again, dated, and dedicated to his friend, Professor Lorenzani.

The work is in excellent condition within a carved wooden frame gilded with fine gold. A brass plate engraved with the artist's name and the title of the work is located on the lower edge of the frame.

The canvas alone measures 30 x 24 cm and comes from a private collection in Milan. The back of the frame bears an inscription with the title, artist, and dedication to his friend.

Ernesto Fontana (1837-1918)

Educated at the Brera Academy, Fontana studied with Giuseppe Sogni, Francesco Hayez, and Giuseppe Bertini, alongside leading figures in Lombard painting of the late 19th century, such as Tranquillo Cremona, Daniele Ranzoni, Filippo Carcano, and Mosè Bianchi, with whom he also shared a studio. He initially gravitated toward the themes of historical Romanticism. He began his career painting historical paintings: The Meeting between Elizabeth and Mary Stuart was awarded the gold medal at the National Painting Exhibition in Milan and later acquired by the British Museum in London. He also won a gold medal at the Ferrara Exhibition in 1875. Fontana, however, was most comfortable with genre painting, being close in taste to, and even friends with, the Induno brothers, the true initiators of anecdotal painting.

He also devoted himself to the fresco decoration of Lombard churches and patrician palaces. Particularly noteworthy are a series of nudes that decorated the bathroom of a wealthy and well-known Milanese (Marangoni, 1924) and, above all, the frescoes in some rooms of Villa Olmo in Como, owned by the Dukes of Visconti di Modrone.

Fontana also borrowed from the Scapigliatura movement the sentimental attitudes that he translated into the subjects of his paintings, which were light and easily accessible. Endowed with a certain technical skill, he also devoted himself to painting graceful and mischievous female figures. This piece has an attribution mark,
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