ARCHIVE MARINE OFFERS


   versione italiana                                                                                                                                                                          english version 

9.         GAVARRONE,  DOMENICO  1852        

Miracle on board of the Brig "Annetta" for the son of Capt. Razeto

Watercolor on paper, cm 42x49 (inv. Costa n. 18)

 Signed: Domenico Gavarrone, li 9 maggio 1852

Known data:

   TYPE:                                             brig
   DATE OF CONSTRUCTION:    1851
   PLACE OF CONSTRUCTION:  Savona
  SHIPOWNER:                              Giacomo Razeto called "u Pantalin"
  CAPTAIN:                                     Giacomo Razeto called "u Pantalin"

Caption:

   "Brig Annetta - Capt.n Giacomo Razeto; - Grace received by Emmanuele son of the Capt.n; while he has fallen out from the main topmast on the Caulker deck on 13th april 1852"

Notes:

Like in an other Marine Offer of the Boschetto (cfr. table 45, inv. Costa 2), protagonists are still the Razeto's and once again we find father and son on board of the same ship.

It was in fact extremely frequent that inscribed in the crew was a lot of people of the same family and also that the commander of the ship was a relative of the shipowner and participated with one quota to the property: Gio Bono Ferrari, writer of the local marine traditions, in its book "The city of the thousand Sailing Ships" (Camogli 1935, p. 40), tells that "the old shipowner gave in marriage the daughter to the young and daring Captain".

And with the filial offer of the daughter (the good Greats-grandmother married themselves to sixteen years) were the offer of the command of the green schooner or the Brick with the hatches painted in black to the use of the war frigates". The incident recalled by the painting, compared to others, allows one rare "more landscaped" acclimatization not being happened in open sea: we can therefore appreciate the ability of the painter, whose production is more known   by its storm or hurricane scenes that in reproduce a moment of daily life inside the port.

Perhaps just attracted from this less frequent occasion, Gavarrone dawdled to describe with details the background of the western side of the port of Genoa with the  unmistakable Lantern; it acclimatizes the brig "Annetta" between the others moors in the area and, distracting itself from the purpose of the painting of an offering, he renders the recalled incident barely percepibile only to a careful observation. 

More excited and frightful atmosphere is instead that one in which the same brig "Annetta" is represented  during a storm in the offer conserved in the Sanctuary of the Madonna di Montallegro and perhaps attributable to Giovanni Canetta (cfr. E. Carta, U. Ricci, F. M. Schiaffino, Rapallo sacra minore. Ex voto marinari del Santuario di Nostra Signora di Montallegro, - Sacred Rapallo Minor. Ex-Voto of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Montallegro, - Genoa 1980, table 6).

The presence of a camogliese brig in the port of Genoa was not indeed unusual:   Camogli has been defined "The city of the thousand white Sailships" surely not  for the presence of these in its small harbour, but because camogliese were the shipowners and the crews: their headport was Genoa with a massive presence: they transformed the port of Genoa in a branch of the camogliese port.

 
BIBLIOGRAPHY: G.B.R. Figari, Capitan Giacomo Razeto, knight of the Legion d'Honneur (1811-1888), in "The Madonna of the Boschetto Bulletin", 1978 (4), pp.19-21; F. Simonetti in "La Preghiera del Marinaio" (The Sailor's Prayer), Catalogue of the Exibition, Rome 1992, p. 685.