ELEUTERIO PAGLIANO

DEPARTURE FROM THE FAMILY HOME OF A FARMER BRIDE IN ANOTHER VILLAGE

ELEUTERIO PAGLIANO
Casale Monferrato, 1826 – 1903, Milano

Watercolor on paper, signed and dated lower left “Pagliano Eleuterio 1860 (?)”
25 × 35 cm / 9.8 × 13.8 in
with frame: 42.5 × 52.5 cm / 16.7 × 20.7 in

PROVENANCE: Private collection, France

This finely executed watercolor revisits the celebrated composition Partenza dalla casa paterna di una contadina fatta sposa in un altro villaggio, painted by Eleuterio Pagliano around 1855 and later engraved by Trezzini and Gandini (La partenza di una sposa dalla casa paterna, 1872). The scene, filled with tenderness and human dignity, represents a farmer’s daughter leaving her family home to be married in another village. It echoes the noble solemnity of historical painting, where themes of separation, sacrifice, and affection gain the moral weight of national sentiment.

Pagliano’s approach, deeply rooted in the post-Romantic Italian tradition, reflects the mid-19th-century transformation of historical narrative into scenes of everyday life, seen through the lens of patriotic emotion. While outwardly depicting rural life, this watercolor is imbued with the same pathos found in episodes of heroic sacrifice, familiar from the great canvases of Romantic historicism. The emotional intensity — almost melodramatic — became a way to rehabilitate the world of the peasantry, turning it into a mirror of Italian virtue, family, and moral strength.

Eleuterio Pagliano, one of the foremost painters of the Italian Risorgimento, was not only an artist but also a patriot and soldier. Educated at the Brera Academy under Luigi Sabatelli, he soon turned from Neoclassicism to Romanticism, influenced by Francesco Hayez and Tranquillo Cremona. He fought alongside Luciano Manara and Giuseppe Garibaldi during the Cinque Giornate di Milano and the defense of the Roman Republic. His canvases — such as La morte di Luciano Manara and Lo sbarco di Garibaldi a Sesto Calende — immortalized the heroism of the independence wars.

As a painter, Pagliano merged patriotic idealism with refined sentiment, bridging the gap between historical grandeur and the tenderness of everyday life. His works were exhibited in Milan, Turin, Paris, Berlin, and admired by both Italian and European critics. A professor at the Brera Academy, he taught the next generation of Italian artists, including Pompeo Mariani and Spartaco Vela.

Through works like Departure from the Family Home of a Farmer Bride, Pagliano elevated humble rural emotion to the level of national poetry — giving visual form to the moral unity of a nation being reborn.