Genre Scenes, Oil on canvas, Old master 18th Century Flemish

Early 18th Century

River landscape with popular life scene Oil painting on canvas 62 x 98 Framed 74 x 110 cm. We present this vast and harmonious composition, where a characteristic river landscape acts as a stage for an exquisite extract of popular life, set in a small village on the edge of a lush stream. The painting, which presents characters unequivocally linked to the Flemish culture of the second half of the 17th century, shows iconographic and stylistic correspondences, in particular, with the successful production of Adrien Frans Boudewijns (1644-1711) and Pieter Bout (1658- 1719). Aside from the figure of duck hunter...

Francesco Antoniani (Milan 1700/1710 - Turin 1775) workshop Fantasy coastal view with boats and figures Oil on canvas 56 x 138 cm. - framed 71 x 153 cm. Excellent condition This f...

Jacob Ferdinand Saeys (Antwerp 1658 - Vienna 1726) and workshop Architectural capriccio with a coastal view at sunset and figures oil painting on canvas 60 x 91 cm., With frame 75 x...

Diana and her nymphs surprised by Actaeon Francesco Albani (Bologna 1578 - 1660), workshop of oil on canvas 62 x 75 cm. framed 72 x 84 cm. (period frame) The proposed painting, de...

Francesco Graziani, known as Ciccio Napoletano (active in Naples and Rome in the second half of the 17th century) Battle with clash of horsemen Oil on canvas 95 x 130 cm In period ...

after RAFFAELLO SANZIO (Urbino, 1483 - Rome, 1520), The Parnassus with Apollo, the Muses and ancient and modern poets 17th-18th century Oil on canvas (123 x 173 cm - framed 137 x 187 cm.) This refined painting, of considerable size and great scenic effect, is a derivation of Raphael Sanzio's famous fresco depicting Mount Parnassus, datable to 1510-1511 and located in the Stanza della Segnatura, one of the four Vatican Rooms. The meaning of the subject was to celebrate humanistic culture, a sort of allegorical representation that saw both the figures of myth and those of the greatest authors of the past side by side in the same space. The scene, enveloped in a lyrical atmosphere, is set on Mount Parnassus, near the fountain Castalia, for Greek mythology the home of the Muses, where ancient and modern poets are depicted. The painting, which rather faithfully reproduces Raphael's piece with perfect harmony and great pictorial quality, is the work of an Italian author active between the 17th and 18th century. We can see the careful balancing of the light, which brings out its chromatic brilliance, and the accentuated sculptural relief that the author gave to the figures, as well as the very faithful rendering of the individual pictorial details of the figures. At the centre of the composition stands the main figure of the god Apollo, crowned with laurel and seated on a rocky boulder intent on playing the lyre from his arm, surrounded by the nine Muses...

Jacques Courtois, known as il Borgognone (Saint-Hyppolite 1621 - Rome 1676) circle of - Battaglia. 53 x 80 cm without frame, 73.5 x 97.5 cm with frame. Antique oil painting on canv...

Dimensions: 50 x 80 cm without frame, 70 x 100 cm with frame. Gilded, carved, sculpted and chiselled wooden box frames. Publications: Jacob de Heusch (1656 – 1701). Un pittore ol...

Provenance: The Marchesi Strozzi, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence Sale, Christie’s, London, May 20, 1993, lot 315, as by Carl Borromaus Andreas Ruthart...

Cristofano Roncalli (Pomarance 1552 - Rome 1626) Saint Catherine of Siena chooses the crown of thorns oil on wood, cm. 101,5x59.5 - with frame cm. 120x76 Shaped, carved and sculpted wooden cassetta frame, partly gilded and partly ebonized wood Expertise: Marco Ciampolini The marvellous scene that opens before our eyes is that of Christ's apparition to Saint Catherine of Siena; she must choose between a golden crown, the symbol of earthly royalty, and a crown of thorns, the symbol of virtuous Christian sacrifice. Catherine does not hesitate to choose the crown of thorns, her life in imitation of...

Claude-Joseph Vernet (French, 1714 – 1789) Fisherman by a cascade in a gorge Oil on canvas 22.1/4 x 25.1/2 in. (56.5 x 64.7 cm.) Provenance: The estate of the late Betty, Lady Grantchester Du Catalogue Collection #39 Christie's London, 3 Dec 1997, Lot 52 (£41,000) Claude-Joseph Vernet was the leading French landscape painter (with Hubert Robert) of the later 18th century. He achieved great celebrity with his topographical paintings and serene landscapes. He was also one of the century's most accomplished painters of tempests and moonlight scenes...

The Great Fire of London in September 1666 was one of the greatest disasters in the city’s history. The City, with its wooden houses crowded together in narrow streets, was a natural fire risk, and predictions that London would burn down became a shocking reality. The fire began in a bakery in Pudding Lane, an area near the Thames teeming with warehouses and shops full of flammable materials, such as timber, oil, coal, pitch and turpentine. Inevitably the fire spread rapidly from this area into the City. Our painting depicts the impact of the fire on those who were caught in it and creates a very dramatic impression of what the fire was like. Closer inspection reveals a scene of chaos and panic with people running out of the gates. It shows Cripplegate in the north of the City, with St Giles without Cripplegate to its left, in flames (on the site of the present day Barbican). The painting probably represents the fire on the night of Tuesday 4 September, when four-fifths of the City was burning at once, including St Paul's Cathedral. Old St Paul’s can be seen to the right of the canvas, the medieval church with its thick stone walls, was considered a place of safety, but the building was covered in wooden scaffolding as it was in the midst of being restored by the then little known architect, Christopher Wren and caught fire. Our painting seems to depict a specific moment on the Tuesday night when the lead on St Paul’s caught fire and, as the diarist John Evelyn described: ‘the stones of Paul’s flew like grenades, the melting lead running down the streets in a stream and the very pavements glowing with the firey redness, so as no horse, nor man, was able to tread on them.’ Although the loss of life was minimal, some accounts record only sixteen perished, the magnitude of the property loss was shocking – some four hundred and thirty acres, about eighty per cent of the City proper was destroyed, including over thirteen thousand houses, eighty-nine churches, and fifty-two Guild Halls. Thousands were homeless and financially ruined. The Great Fire, and the subsequent fire of 1676, which destroyed over six hundred houses south of the Thames, changed the appearance of London forever. The one constructive outcome of the Great Fire was that the plague, which had devastated the population of London since 1665, diminished greatly, due to the mass death of the plague-carrying rats in the blaze. The fire was widely reported in eyewitness accounts, newspapers, letters and diaries. Samuel Pepys recorded climbing the steeple of Barking Church from which he viewed the destroyed City: ‘the saddest sight of desolation that I ever saw.’ There was an official enquiry into the causes of the fire, petitions to the King and Lord Mayor to rebuild, new legislation and building Acts. Naturally, the fire became a dramatic and extremely popular subject for painters and engravers. A group of works relatively closely related to the present picture have been traditionally ascribed to Jan Griffier...