Giuseppe Zais, 'Landscape with a Group of Figures', probably 1770-80

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.