Painting Lesson Circle of Van Den Bossche Oil on Canvas Old Master 17/18th C.

1695-1730

Antonio Travi, called Sestri (Genoa, Sestri Ponente 1608 - Genoa 1665) Landscape with ruins and biblical scene First half of the seventeenth century oil on canvas, 82 x 121 cm The beautiful painting published, which presents a vast landscape with architectural ruins, fully reflects the pictorial poetics of Antonio Travi (Sestri Ponente 1608 - Genoa 1665), the first landscape painter of the Genoese pictorial school; A poetic that remains constant throughout his career: Bernardo Strozzi...

Scipione Pulzone, called Il Gaetano (Gaeta 1544 - Rome 1598) - workshop of Portrait of Bianca Cappello (Venice, 1548 - 1587) Grand Duchess of Tuscany, second wife of Francesco I de 'Medici Second half of the 16th century oil on canvas, cm. 70 x 56 cm., Framed 103 x 87 cm. The proposed painting illustrates the portrait of Bianca Cappello (Venice, 1548 - 1587), a noblewoman of Venetian origins, second wife of the Grand Duke of Tuscany Francesco I de 'Medici, whose expressive power is wisely highlighted by the composite cut of light three quarters, with the head and gaze directed at the observer. The beam of light coming from her right brings out the volumes of her face plastically and lingers on her features, highlighted by the large white lace ruff that surrounds his neck and by the details of her precious clothing. Bianca wears a dark red dress, perhaps a zimarra, embroidered in gold with a plunging neckline and a raised collar of the shirt curled in a ruff and also edged with precious lace, embroidered with the motif of the Florentine lily.   The favorite jewels of the noblewoman were pearls: we see them on a choker that adorns the neckline, in the earrings and again in the hairstyle, which sees the hair gathered at the nape of the neck and adorned with a string of small black pearls and embellished with a clasp. It is a high-quality painting that can be confined to the workshop of the painter Scipione Pulzone called Gaetano, representing at best a pictorial genre, that of portraiture, in which the master excelled. This attribution would be confirmed by comparisons with the numerous portraits that Pulzone dedicated to the Medici family. Our painting, in particular, could represent one of the versions that the workshop has replicated, at the request of the numerous art collectors who wish to have a portrait of one of the most influential personalities of the Florentine scene. The characters drawn by Pulzone were icons of incomparable elegance: noblewomen, knights and religious lent their faces to the eye of the artist who was able to grasp every meticulous detail with his superb technique. A photographic wealth and surprising material attention that trace the pictorial prototypes of Flemish inspiration, in particular of Antonis Mor...

Lombard painter of the seventeenth century Ecce Homo Oil painting on canvas 56 x 43 cm. , framed 75 x 63 cm. Provenance: Florence, Pandolfini, 5.10.2021, lot 209 The proposed canv...

Pair of views of Rotterdam: The Stock Exchange building / View of the canal with the old port Eighteenth-century Vedutist painter oils on canvas 47 x 66 cm. - with frame 56 x 75 cm. This pleasant pair of paintings depict two glimpses of the city of Rotterdam, investigated here as vivid documentaries of the habits and customs from the public life of the wealthy Dutch port city, as well as one of the founders of the Dutch East India Company, is an excellent example of 18th century Vedutism We see, in particular, in the first work the monumental Palazzo della Borsa (defined as Il Beurs), designed by the architect Adriaen van der Werff in Westnieuwland, initially a place destined for legislation on trade, where merchant-bankers met periodically to exchange securities credit and enter into sales; it is located on the bank of the Nordblaak River and shot with the Gaapers Bridge in the foreground. The second work immortalizes the docking of the ancient port of Rotterdam, with the foreground view of the two city gates (the Wester Old Hoofdpoort on the left and the Ooster Oude Hoofdpoort on the right); in the background on the left the St. Laurenskerk (Church of San Lorenzo), also called the Great Church of Rotterdam, is the only medieval structure, while on the right the English Church. Very well executed, characterized by a marked brightness and a chromatic range with bright colors and highlighted by the contrast between lights and shadows, our canvases are a very interesting testimony of eighteenth-century Rotterdam, portraying two of the views that have historically influenced a lot on economic history of the city. We can attribute the authorship to an author of the full eighteenth century, inspired by the pictorial style of the Italian landscape painters and whose iconography was presumably drawn from the numerous prints with perspective views made through the optical cameras. In particular, these views of Rotterdam draw their iconographic origin from a collection of perspective prints of the most influential European cities, made by the engraver Johann Balthasar Probst (1732-1801), characterized by a remarkable refinement in the line, at the service of a sense of perspective of undoubted value, and above all characterized by a strong Nordic taste. Descendant of a large family of Augsburg engravers, Probst contributed to making his workshop an important European publishing center between the 17th and 18th centuries, among the major German print publishers in the first half of the 18th century. Despite his travels, including in Italy, between Venice, Rome and Naples, not all the cities he portrayed were drawn from life but taken from earlier prints and drawings and filtered through northern European clichés. Many of these engravings have been lost and are now difficult to find on the antiques market.

A Tavern Interior - 18th Century Old Master, Figurative Oil Painting by Schaak Little is known about the artist J.S.C. Schaak. He was active in England as a portraitist between 1760-1770. His name indicates his German or Dutch origin. Especially portraits of generals...

Exhibited: London, Royal Academy, 1800, no. 93 What was happening in British history painting in around 1800? In recent discussions of the emergence of a British School of history painting following the foundation of the Royal Academy in 1768, this is a question which is rarely posed and one which is not easily answered. Examination of surviving Royal Academy exhibition catalogues reveals a profusion of artists’ names and titles, few of which remain immediately recognizable, whilst endeavours to explain the impact of exhibition culture on painting - such as the 2001 Courtauld show Art on the Line - have tended to focus on the first and second generation of Royal Academician, rather than young or aspiring artists in the early nineteenth century. This makes the discovery and identification of the work under discussion of exceptional importance in making sense of currents in English painting around 1800. Executed by Edward Dayes...

Provenance: Dukes of Marlborough Collection, Blenheim Palace until its sale at Christie's London on 26 July 1886 (lot 172) English private collection until its sale at Christie's London on 11 December 1992 (lot 363) Erna Weidinger Collection (1923 - 2021) - Austria Literature : Georg Scharf - A list of the pictures in Blenheim Palace - Catalogue raisonné Part 2 - London 1862 (page 166 - number 199 "after Palma Giovane") Charles Davies...

Here Gaspard Dughet offers us an idyllic vision of the Roman countryside. The stages follow one another in a perfectly structured composition, revealing here a lake, there travellers walking along, gradually leading our eye to the blue horizon. But behind its classical composition, this landscape is particularly interesting because of three anthropomorphic details that the artist has hidden, opening the way to a radically different interpretation... 1. Gaspard Dughet, a landscape artist in the light of Poussin Gaspard Dughet was born on June 4th, 1615 in Rome where his father, of French origin, was a pastry cook. He was probably named Gaspard in honour of his godfather Baron Gaspard de Morant, who was, or may have been, his father's employer. His older sister Jeanne married the painter Nicolas Poussin (1594 - 1655) on September 1st, 1630. The young Gaspard was apprenticed with his brother-in-law at the beginning of 1631, which led his entourage to name him Gaspard Poussin. The first preserved works of the painter date from the years 1633-1634 and were painted in Poussin’s studio. Around 1635, Gaspard Dughet became emancipated and began to frequent the Bamboccianti circle. In 1636, he became friends with the painter Jean Miel (1599 - 1656), but also with Pier Francesco Mola (1612 - 1666) and Pietro da Cortona (1596 - 1669). This was also the time of his first trips throughout Italy. The painter, although of French origin, appears never to have visited France. In 1646 he settled permanently in Rome. A recognized painter with a solid book of orders, he remained faithful to landscape painting throughout his life, alternating between cabinet paintings and large decorative commissions, using both oil and fresco. Nailed to his bed by rheumatic fever at the age of 58, he died on May 25, 1675. 2. Discovering an idealized landscape Beyond a relatively dark foreground that takes us into the landscape, we discover a vast bluish horizon: a plateau surrounded by deep ravines advances to the right, overhanging an expanse of water that sparkles below. A road winds through a mountainous mass as if leading us to the fortress that crowns it; another town appears in the distance at the foot of three conical mountains. The composition is rigorous, mineral, and structured by geometric volumes. The various stages in the landscape lead one to the next attracting the eye towards the horizon located in the middle of the canvas. The general impression is that of a welcoming and serene nature. In many places the paint layer has shrunk, or become transparent, revealing the dark red preparation with which the canvas was covered and accentuating the contrasts. Human presence is limited to three jack players, leaning against a mound in the foreground. Their long garments, which may evoke Roman togas, contribute to the timelessness of the scene. Close examination of the canvas reveals two other travellers on the path winding between the rocks. Made tiny by the distance, their introduction in the middle register, typical of Dughet's art, lengthens the perspective. While it is difficult to date the work of a painter who devoted his entire life to the representation of landscapes, it is certain that this painting is a work from his later years. The trees that occupied the foreground of his youthful compositions have been relegated to the sides, a stretch of water separates us from the arid mountains counterbalanced by two trees represented on the opposite bank. The introduction of this stretch of water in the middle of the landscape betrays the influence of the Bolognese and in particular of the Dominiquin (1581 - 1641) A number of similarities with a drawing in the British Museum might suggest a date around 1656-1657, since, according to Marie-Nicole Boisclair , it has been compared with the Prado's Landscape with the Repentant Magdalene, painted at that period. 3. Three amazing anthropomorphic details While some late Renaissance landscapes offer a radical double reading, allowing one to see both a face or a human body behind the representation of a landscape, it seems interesting to us to hypothesize that Gaspard Dughet had fun here by slipping in a few details that, taken in isolation, evoke human or animal figures. We will give three examples, looking closely at a cloud, the trunk of a broken tree and the top of a cliff. The main cloud could thus evoke a Christ-like face or that of an antique god...