Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

Standing Nude in Landscape

Woman Pulling on a Slip Conte on paper, c. 1910 Signed lower right: "E. Shinn" (see photo of legs, signature on right) Provenance: Estate of the Artist (see label) Graham Gallery, N...

Reclining Female Nude Charcoal and colored chalks with white highlights on tan laid paper, c. 1948 Signed and monogrammed by the artist lower right (see photo) A masterpiece dr...

This spectacular red chalk drawing depicts an elderly woman, her eyes bulging, her hand stretched out towards the sky. This disturbing character, who seems close to dementia, and the elongation of her arm with its Mannerist overtones, plunge us into the Florentine artistic milieu of the first half of the 17th century. The proximity of this drawing to some characters in the fresco in the Pitti Palace representing The Muses, Poets and Philosophers chased from Parnassus, the last masterpiece of Giovanni da San Giovanni, leads us to propose an attribution to this artist and a dating of around 1635-1636. 1. Giovanni da San Giovanni, the painter of contradiction We take here the title of the monography dedicated to the artist by Anna Banti in 1977, which remains the reference book for this artist. The son of a notary, Giovanni Mannozzi, known as Giovanni da San Giovanni, abandoned his studies to go to Florence at the age of sixteen, where he entered the studio of Matteo Rosselli (1578 - 1650) around 1609 and enrolled in the Academy of Drawing Arts in 1612. Around 1615 he produced his first known works, mainly frescoes for the city's tabernacles. He became famous in Florence for his originality, combining an obsessive application to the study of drawing and the reading of poetry and history with a disheveled appearance. Between 1619 and 1620 he decorated the facade of the Antella Palace in Piazza Santa Croce, a decoration that still partly survives today. The death of Cosimo II in 1621 put an end to the Florentine building activity and Giovanni da San Giovanni left for Rome to find other sponsors with the painter Francesco Furini...

Black and red chalk on paper, signed and dated (lower right), 31cm x 27cm (50cm x 45cm framed). Delmotte was a painter, draftsman, watercolourist and Belgian sculptor. A realist painter at first, he was influenced by Expressionism of the beginning of the century. An impressive list of gallery exhibitions of his work during his lifetime, either independently or as part of a group, indicate that he was a known and successful figure in art worlds of Belgium and Europe. Marcel Delmotte received numerous awards and honors throughout his career. He was named Knight of the Order of Leopold II...