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Giuseppe Zais, Landscape with a Group of Figures

Key facts
Full title Landscape with a Group of Figures
Artist Giuseppe Zais
Artist dates 1709 - 1784
Date made probably 1770-80
Medium and support Oil on canvas
Dimensions 49.5 × 65.5 cm
Inscription summary Signed
Acquisition credit Bought, 1889
Inventory number NG1296
Location Not on display
Collection Main Collection
Landscape with a Group of Figures
Giuseppe Zais
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A group of smartly dressed men and women, accompanied by two dogs, talk among themselves. On the other side of the gently flowing river, peasants experience a very different life: they wash clothes and attend to cattle beside a rustic farmhouse. As a backdrop, this painting uses a rural village framed by trees and distant mountains, painted in thick brushstrokes of rich colour, as does its companion piece, Landscape with a Group of Figures Fishing (National Gallery, London).

Guiseppe Zais moved to Venice in around 1725/30, where he spent nearly 50 years as a landscape painter. This is a late work of around 1770/80s. In 1774, after several attempts, Zais was accepted as a member of the Fraglia dei Pittori Veneziani, a prestigious society of artists working in Venice. His painting technique was inspired by Francesco Zuccarelli, whose Landscape with Figures and Cattle is also in the National Gallery’s collection.

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More paintings by Giuseppe Zais

Landscape with a Group of Figures Fishing
Landscape with a Group of Figures Fishing
Giuseppe Zais
A lady dressed in colourful clothes and holding a fishing rod gazes merrily out of the picture. She is accompanied by a woman with a net and a man who picks up a basket of fish. Other men and women gather beside the meandering river, some casting and reeling in their fishing lines. In the distanc...
Not on display
Landscape with a Ruined Tower
Landscape with a Ruined Tower
Giuseppe Zais
Figures placed carefully across the landscape lead us through the painting, from the peasants resting by a path to the rider and his white horse, and on to those walking towards a ruined arch and tower. To the right, a cow herder and his animals rest by the river while two women on the far bank w...
Not on display