Museo Civico, Modena, Italy
According to the essay for the reconfirmation of the pensioner, the great biblical scene sent to Modena in 1875 provoked discordant opinions. The scene takes place in a seemingly external environment with the protagonists pushed in the foreground by an architectural backdrop, made with calibrated archaeological taste. The scene, Abraham and Sara close to each other in a moment of relaxed intimacy, is influenced by the setting of the backdrop of Ferdinando Manzini's sets of scenography, while the choice of a marginal episode, of bourgeois intimacy ante litteram, already denotes an overcoming of academic conventions in the name of greater realism. The descriptive details of the environment, certainly inspired by careful research, seem to tend, rather than to criteria of verisimilitude, to an oriental and antiquarian taste.
After having participated in the exhibition of Naples in 1877, in the thirties the work was also exhibited in Ferrara, 1933, and in Bologna, 1937, a sign of the painter's lasting success. More on this painting
Abraham stayed in Canaan for several years until a famine forced him and Sarah to migrate to Egypt. In Egypt was a despotic Pharaoh who had the passionate desire to take possession of married women. The Pharaoh took Sarah into his harem and honored Abraham for it, but when his house was stricken with severe plagues, he came to know that she was the wife of Abraham and chastised him for not telling him so, thus banishing him from Egypt.
Sarah returned while Abraham was praying, accompanied by gifts from the Pharaoh, as he had realized their special nature, along with his own daughter Hagar as well, according to Judeo-Christian traditions, as a handmaiden. She had delivered a powerful message to the Pharaoh and the pagan Egyptians. More on Abraham and Sarah in the Court of Pharaoh
Giovanni Muzzioli (February 10, 1854 – August 5, 1894) was an Italian painter, was born in Modena, after his family had moved from Castelvetro. At the age of 15 years, he began to attend the local Academy of Fine Arts of Modena, working under Antonio Simonazzi and Asioli. At the age of seventeen (1871) he gained the Poletti scholarship entitling him to four years residence in Rome studying at the Accademia di San Luca, working first under professor Podesti, and later after 1874 under professor Coghetti. In Rome, he painted an Abraham and Sarah at the court of the Pharaoh, a painting which he sent back to Modena.
Soon thereafter, he moved to Florence, where he remained the rest of his life. After his return to Modena, Muzzioli visited the Paris Exhibition, and there came under the influence of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, and began painting subjects from classical history of Greece and Rome. His first important pictures were In the Temple of Bacchus and Funeral Rites in Egypt (1881, Milan Exhibition), where the former won a prize of 1000 lire. He captures the epoch, the people, the environment, with a truth, with enviable evidence, (there is here) no phantasmagoria, none of the sophisticated pomp of a scenographer.
From 1878 to his death (1894) Muzzioli lived in Florence, where he painted the altarpiece for the church of Castelvetro. Muzzioli was named professor of the Academies of Modena, Florence, and other cities. More on Giovanni Muzzioli
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