MUNICH.- The restorer of Gallery Daxer & Marschall in Munich made a remarkable discovery while cleaning a painting to be shown at TEFAF. The mark of a cat’s paw in the wet paint appeared in the sky of La Strada di Brindisi (1872) by the Italian impressionist Giuseppe de Nittis.

The cat left it’s footprint just after the painter had finished and left the painting unattended for a moment. “De Nittis is well known to have been a cat lover” commented the expert on the painter, Prof. Sperken, Bari. The painting will be on view at stand 337 Daxer & Marschall. It is a preliminary study for the well known larger version “La Strada di Brindisi” in the Indianapolis Museum of Art. It is one of a group of exquisite plein air sketches by de Nittis all originating from the Dieterle collection, Paris.

Giuseppe De Nittis is one of the most important Italian painters of the nineteenth century. He took up his studies at the Istituto di Belle Arti in Naples but early on abandoned the academic tradition of his training. He came into contact with the group of young Florentine painters known as the ‘Macchiai- oli’. Following their example, he began to practice plein-air painting. He moved to Paris in 1868 and quickly made his name in artistic circles. In 1874, he participated in the first Impressionists exhibition staged in the Paris studio of the photographer Nadar. De Nittis was an influential figure in the world of art and letters. Independently wealthy, he acquired an elegant Paris residence which served as a popular meeting-place for artists and writers, particularly Degas, Manet, Daudet, Zola and the Goncourt brothers.

In recent years a number of exhibitions have featured De Nittis’s work. One was jointly staged at the Petit Palais in Paris and the Pinacoteca Giuseppe De Nittis in Barletta in 2010, and a second held at the Palazzo Zabarella in Padua in 2013.