Assault

Ca 1780. Oil on canvas

Francesco Casanova was an internationally renowned artist of Italian descent. He was an outstanding 18th-century landscape and battle scene painter. Casanova’s art was appreciated in the courts of Europe, and he enjoyed a life full of adventure, much like his elder brother, the famous memoir writer Giacomo Casanova. The path to his success as an artist was paved by Denis Diderot, the great philosopher and encyclopaedist of the Enlightenment. In 1763, Casanova became a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture of France, and he was awarded the title of court painter. It was Diderot who recommended Casanova to the Russian Empress Catherine II as a battle scene painter. The Empress bought several works from Casanova over the years, and commissioned a series of battle paintings in 1789/90 to commemorate the fourth Russo-Turkish War.

The painting “Assault” is almost identical to Casanova’s “Unexpected Assault”, currently in the collection of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow; it is a little less elaborate and more dynamic than its counterpart in Moscow, and is believed by experts to be the earlier of the two. The Russian nobility tried to follow the empress’s taste in art, which led to commissions to copy the works of her favourite artist, Casanova.