Waiting for the return from the fishing

Cabianca's 'Waiting for the Return from the Fishing' (1855) is an early work that anticipates the coastal subjects he would develop more fully after his contact with Macchiaioli colleagues. The theme of waiting — women and family onshore while fishermen are at sea — was common in Italian genre painting but carried genuine social weight for coastal communities whose livelihoods depended entirely on unpredictable maritime conditions. Executed on cardboard rather than canvas, the work reflects the sketching practice that Cabianca and his contemporaries increasingly valued as a way of capturing immediate perceptual experience rather than composing in the studio. The intimacy of cardboard as a support suited rapid, responsive painting, and Cabianca would return to it often throughout his career. This small-format work demonstrates his early sensitivity to the emotional registers of waiting and absence — themes he would treat with greater technical sophistication in the 1860s.

Cardboard support allows for rapid, absorbent paint application with minimal under-preparation. The composition is likely small-scale, with figures defined against a coastal or harbor setting through tonal contrast rather than detailed drawing. The sketch-like quality preserves the spontaneity of direct observation.