Henry W. Keppelmann

A Trompe l’oeil of a Stag’s Head

Anthony Baus is an alumnus and instructor of the Grand Central Atelier in Long Island City, New York. His unique artistic vision, which mines the world of the Old Masters and antiqui...

Anthony Baus is an alumnus and instructor of the Grand Central Atelier in Long Island City, New York. His unique artistic vision, which mines the world of the Old Masters and antiqui...

Provenance: Santambrogio Antichità, Milan; sold, 2007 to: Filippo Pernisa, Milan; by whom sold, 2010, to: Private Collection, Melide, Switzerland De Primi Fine Art, Lugano, Switzerland; from whom acquired, 2011 by: Private Collection, Connecticut (2011-present) Literature: Ferdinando Arisi, “Ancora sui dipinti giovanili del Panini,” Strenna Piacentina (Piacenza, 2009): pp. 48, 57, 65, fig. 31, as by Panini Ferdinando Arisi, “Panini o Ghisolfi o Carlieri? A proposito dei dipinti giovanili,” Strenna Piacentina, (Piacenza, 2010), pp. 100, 105, 116, fig. 101, as an early work by Panini, a variant of Panini’s painting in the Museo Cristiano, Esztergom, Hungary. This architectural capriccio is one of the earliest paintings by Giovanni Paolo Panini, the preeminent painter of vedute and capricci in 18th-century Rome. The attribution to Panini has been endorsed by Ferdinando Arisi, and a recent cleaning of the painting revealed the artist’s signature in the lower right. Like many of his fellow painters working in Rome during his day, Panini was not a native of the Eternal City. He first trained as a painter and stage designer in his hometown of Piacenza and moved to Rome at the age of 20 in November 1711 to study figure painting. Panini joined the workshop of Benedetto Luti (1666-1724) and from 1712 was living on the Piazza Farnese. Panini, like many before and after him, was spellbound by Rome and its classical past. He remained in the city for the rest of his career, specializing in depicting Rome’s most important monuments, as well as creating picturesque scenes like this one that evoked the city’s ancient splendor. The 18th century art historian Lione Pascoli, who likely knew Panini personally, records in his 1730 biography of the artist that when Panini came to Rome, he was already “an excellent master and a distinguished painter of perspective, landscape, and architecture.” Panini’s earliest works from this period still show the evidence of his artistic formation in Piacenza, especially the influence of the view painter Giovanni Ghisolfi (1623-1683). However, they were also clearly shaped by his contact in Rome with the architectural capricci of Alberto Carlieri...

Provenance: Possibly Antonio Amici Moretti, Rome, 1690 Roy Clyde Gardner, Union, Mississippi, 1970s until 2004; by whom given to: Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, 2004-2010 Lit...

Through the lens of autobiographical realism, Bing Zhang invites us into an intimate visual narrative—one that reflects not only her private world, but also offers a mirror to our ow...

Hen and Chicks in Basket is a 12.5 x 15, oil on canvas still life and animal scene by female, American painter, Mary Russell Smith. The painting is framed and signed en verso. Mary ...

A finely executed late 19th-century still life by Walter Brackett (1823-1919) of a rainbow trout with rod and reel in the foreground, along with the fly that captured the trout. Fin...

"Mockingbirds in Paradise" is an American Realist still life with colorful landscape. The landscape was inspired by well-known mid-nineteenth century Hudson River School paintings, f...