GAF2021.10

olio su tela

The monumental canvas 'Nicolò Garaventa and the “Garaventine” youths in the school-ship Redenzione' was painted by Domingo Motta, a painter whose evocative work, “Lo spaccapietre” (1898), is already present in the Wolfsoniana.
The work, inspired by the stylistic and iconographic models of 19th-century social realism, presented at the 1898 Italian General Exhibition in Turin and most probably commissioned, documents one of the most fascinating stories of Genoese philanthropy: that of the educator and benefactor Nicolò Garaventa who, having received the Sardinian Navy brig “Daino” (later renamed “Redenzione”) as a gift from Umberto I, equipped the ship as a rehabilitation institute for marginalised youngsters. Oil on canvas depicting Nicolò Garaventa standing, leaning on his staff. Around him two young sailors lean out from the balustrade while a third mends a sail.