This painting came into the Cariplo Collection from a private collection in 1992. The canvas is an example of the artist’s best-known work, namely the long series of seascapes that began in 1883 with evocative views of the harbour in Genoa. This subject proved a great success with the public and critics from the very outset at the exhibitions in Genoa, Florence and above all Milan, where Mariani won the prestigious Principe Umberto Prize in 1884 with The Farewell of the Dying Sun (private collection). In the exploration of new avenues that expanded the artist’s repertoire with views of the Ligurian coast, a crucial part was placed by his first visit in 1898 to Bordighera, then a well-known seaside resort frequented by members of high society, where he moved definitively in 1907 and spent most of the year in his villa, now the home of the Mariani Foundation [1]. The town became an inexhaustible source of inspiration for the painter, who enjoyed an extraordinary view of the coast from San Remo to Monte Carlo from the windows of his studio, La Specola, and devoted his energies to sea paintings, sketches and drawings.

A large group of works set in Bordighera focus in particular on the activities of fishermen, and the artist addressed the subject of the boat caught in a storm in large-sized canvases of great commitment such as Fishing Boat on the High Sea (1908), presented in the solo show at the Galleria Pesaro in 1923 (no. 161), and Stormy Sea (1906–1907, Milan, Galleria d’Arte Moderna [2]). There are close similarities between the latter and the work examined here, which repeats practically the same scene with a focus on the dark profile of the boat, excluding every other narrative detail. With these few variations, the artist captures the threatening atmosphere of the imminent storm with renewed intensity. The strong wind tilts the sails along the line of the horizon and lashes the waves while black clouds gather in the grey sky. Evidence of the artist’s constant experimentation on the same themes and efforts to improve his technical means is provided by the way in which the effect of depth is built up out of thick brushstrokes juxtaposed with scumbling and scraped away in some points to afford a glimpse the cobalt blue ground. This approach was shared with the leading practitioners of Lombard naturalism, who also visited the coast of Liguria frequently to produce landscape painting en plein air, as attested by a large number of works in the Cariplo Collection, including Seascape by Eugenio Gignous, Midday in the Harbour by Giorgio Belloni and Seascape at Capo Mele by Emilio Gola.