Enrico Gamba 1831-1883

Born in Turin, Enrico Gamba grew up in a prominent local family. His father, Alberto Gamba, was ennobled as a baron in 1835 by King Charles Albert of Sardinia and served as Dean of the Chamber of Auditors. Enrico’s elder brother, Francesco Gamba, was already an established painter when Enrico entered the Accademia Albertina at the age of twelve, where he studied under Michele Cusa, Giovanni Marghinotti, and Carlo Arienti. Encouraged by his mother, Marta Borgnis de Mannheim, an aristocrat of German origin, the young artist joined Eduard von Steinle’s studio at the Städel School in Frankfurt in 1850. There he befriended the English painter Frederic Leighton.

Together with Leighton, Gamba undertook an extensive journey through northern Europe, travelling to Belgium and the Netherlands, before returning to Italy and visiting Verona, Padua, Venice, Florence, and Rome. Between 1853 and 1855, the two friends stayed in the Eternal City, where they frequented the artists’ circle of the Caffè Greco and met Friedrich Overbeck. In 1855, invited by Leighton to his Paris studio, Gamba met Ernest Hébert and Ary Scheffer. Blending a Nazarene influence with a strong interest in historical subjects, he first attracted critical attention with The Funeral of Titian, shown at the Brera in Milan in 1855. Exhibited again the following year at the Promotrice in Turin, the painting was purchased directly by King Victor Emmanuel II, earning Gamba a professorship at the Accademia Albertina.

Established as a history painter, Gamba received in 1860 a major public commission for a large canvas depicting King Victor Amadeus II Aiding the Victims of the War of the Spanish Succession. Completed in 1864, the work enjoyed considerable success in Paris at the Exposition Universelle of 1867. In the wake of Italian unification, he went on to produce numerous large-scale patriotic scenes related to the Risorgimento, and between 1875 and 1880 collaborated with Andrea Gastaldi on the restoration of the cathedral of Chieri, near his native Turin.

Combining watercolour and gouache with a subtle and deliberate use of untouched white paper, the present, highly appealing portrait demonstrates the technical mastery achieved by Enrico Gamba’s fluent and expressive brushwork. It also reflects his keen interest in the theatre, capturing the features of Sarah Bernhardt in her iconic role as Phèdre. In 1874, the young member of the Comédie-Française took on the title role in Racine’s tragedy opposite Mounet-Sully as Hippolytus, achieving her first major triumphs. In addition to designing important stage sets for theatres in Baltimore and Buenos Aires, Gamba produced several watercolour portraits of this rising star of the French stage.

Probably executed around 1879, when Sarah Bernhardt returned to her celebrated role, this sheet stands out for the attention given to the actress’s expression, as if caught in performance, veiled in her antique costume. Gently modelled by lateral lighting, her profile reveals lips still slightly parted, from which her caressing voice seems to emerge, while her distant gaze suggests the languid, ethereal pose that made her so famous. Gamba achieves the remarkable feat of subtly conveying the inner life of his sitter, imbued with a spirituality bordering on mysticism - perfectly suited to expressing the magnetism of a Phèdre wholly surrendered to her passions, at once seductive and unsettling.