Doleful Premonition (1862) was painted by the Italian artist G | Wakingup1984

Doleful Premonition (1862) was painted by the Italian artist Gerolamo Induno (1825-1890).

It shows a girl contemplating a portrait of her partner who was active in the war. She seems sad and alone but the items in her room can help us to better understand her story. The painting is also known as The Girlfriend of the Garibaldian, because of the statuette of the Italian general Giuseppe Garibaldi in the center background. Garibaldi was an important figure for the unification of Italy in the second half of the 1860s. And the girl's partner must have fought for this famous general, which is further emphasized by a print of a battle scene hanging in the window. But this painting may be even better known because it has a print on the wall of the famous painting The Kiss, painted a couple of years earlier by Francesco Hayez. This painting was seen as an artistic symbol of the Italian unification (better known as the Risorgimento).