FRANCESCO GIUSEPPE CASANOVA attrib. to

EPISODE OF A BATTLE BETWEEN OTTOMANS AND CHRISTIANS

FRANCESCO GIUSEPPE CASANOVA
London 1727 – 1803 near Mödling

Brown ink and wash on paper
38 × 54 cm / 15 × 21.3 in, with frame 57 × 73 cm / 22.4 × 28.7 in
Old inscription on the frame: Jan van Huchtenberg (later misattribution)

PROVENANCE
France, private collection

When I first saw this drawing, it immediately caught my attention with its energy and unusual iconography. The old plaque bore the name Jan van Huchtenberg, but from the very first moment it was clear that the work was of an entirely different nature. In Huchtenberg, the line is always rigid, the contour closed, and the composition rational — whereas here, everything breathes movement, spontaneity, and the lively improvisation characteristic of the second half of the eighteenth century. This sheet was evidently executed later than once believed, and the longer I looked at it, the more insistently it reminded me of the graphic hand of Francesco Casanova — the outstanding Italian-born painter who worked between Paris and Vienna.

Although Casanova’s biography is often framed in French or Austrian tones, I have always thought of him as profoundly Italian — in temperament, in pictorial sensibility, and in the inner musicality of his line, which can be felt even in this sheet.

Francesco Giuseppe Casanova (London 1727 – 1803 near Mödling) was an Italian painter and draughtsman, brother of the famous writer Giacomo Casanova. Born into an artistic family, he absorbed from childhood the theatrical expressiveness of Venetian culture. His artistic formation took place under the influence of Francesco and Giannantonio Guardi, as well as Francesco Simonini, whose battle scenes determined his lifelong choice of subject. Later, working in Paris under Charles Parrocel, Casanova became court painter to Louis XV and a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. His art combines the drama of the Italian school with the refined decorativeness of the French tradition.

After the 1770s, when Casanova settled in Vienna, he received a number of major commissions from Empress Catherine II, devoted to the Russo-Turkish wars. These large, monumental canvases depicting Russia’s key victories are now in the collection of the Hermitage Museum. At the same time, the artist produced a series of smaller, more intimate works not linked to specific historical events but inspired by the same military campaigns. The present drawing clearly belongs to that group.

At the centre of the scene is the death of an Ottoman standard-bearer: the fallen warrior struggles to hold onto the banner bearing a distinct crescent moon. The fatal blow is delivered by a Cossack horseman, referring to the participation of Cossack troops in the Russo-Turkish wars of the late eighteenth century. In the distance, a group of European riders maintains their formation — a likely allusion to the regular troops of the Russian Empire and its allies.

This drawing is a brilliant example of Casanova’s mature period, demonstrating his virtuosity as a draughtsman and his ability to transform a battle scene into an almost theatrical performance — where every figure is animated by motion and every line seems to breathe.