GIOVANNI BORTIGNONI “Woman with pitcher “ watercolor painting on porous paper, signed in the lower right Bortignoni G. 1881, in excellent condition. Canvas measures 25x15, framed 33x23 cm.   GIUSEPPE BORTIGNONI junior (Bassano del Grappa, 1859 - Bologna, 1936). The homonymy with his paternal grandfather has made the identification of this painter rather difficult, further complicated by the fact that he bears the same initials as his father. Giuseppe Bortignoni II or junior, in fact, is the son of art; his grandfather was Giuseppe Bortignoni (Bassano del Grappa 1776-1860) a copper engraver and chalcographer active in Rome between 1798 and 1801 and then residing again in Bassano del Grappa. His father, Gaetano Bortignoni (Bassano del Grappa 1824-Bologna 1901) also an engraver (burin, etching, lithography) trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, moved to Modena and then to Bologna in 1878. Giuseppe arrived in Bologna as a young adult, married Olimpia Brini and in the catalog of the 1888 Emilian Exhibition he is said to be residing in via Fondazza 32. “Giuseppe Bortignoni, Bolognese genre painter, fine and accurate observer and executor; among his paintings that aroused the most sympathy, we remember: The Convent Cook and Don Giovanni unrepentant, which appeared in 1887 in Venice. He also deals with other genres of painting, but in that of genre he seems to have achieved excellence." (From the 'Dictionary of living Italian artists', ed Gonnelli, Angelo De Gubernatis, 1906). We find news of his activity as a painter mainly in the eighties of the century.