Lambert von Babo

Courtship Scene 1887

1887

The scene depicts a feast within a park enclosed by walls with arched gateways opening onto the countryside, and adorned on the right with an amphora on a small column and in the center, behind the figures, with a gushing fountain, with statues of cherubs and shells. Two couples of richly dressed ladies and gentlemen entertain themselves gallantly, surrounded by servants; one of the men is playing the violin, crouching in front of his lady, who, flanked by the damsel, follows the melody on the score held up by the dark-haired man at her side, while two musicians accompany the playing with flute and a mandolin; the other couple, in an attitude of intimate dialogue, listens on the left, while on the right the hunter returning from the hunt also observes the scene. Particularly prominent in the scene is the rich dress of the lady in the center, characterized by the wide back folds falling from her shoulders to create a cape. Such a dress corresponds to what was called "robe à la Watteau," named after the French painter Antoine Watteau who first portrayed ladies wearing this pattern. Antoine Watteau (1684 -1721), a French painter considered one of the most influential French exponents of Rococo painting, was the forerunner of the pictorial genre of gallant scenes, a genre that developed in France from the late 1600s and continued throughout the following century. The gallant scenes could be considered as the aristocratic version of the genre scene: characterized by music, dances, pleasant conversations between ladies and gentlemen surrounded by servants, they tended to enhance the costumes, fashionable clothes, and environments of the upper class, conveying a kind of detachment from the real times and places, projecting the viewer into an almost theatrical atmosphere of gestures, looks, colors and stage lights. Moreover, Watteau, along with the Fêtes galantes cycles, also distinguished himself for those inspired by the theater, absorbing his passion for the scenes and characters of that milieu from Claude Gillot...

Oil on Canvas. Central Italian school of the 17th century. According to iconographic tradition, the 'guardian angel is also depicted in this painting as a winged youth accompanying a...

“BS Trust” is 36” x 36”. Frank Arnold’s paintings exhibit the highest quality materials for a truly archival piece, created to last generations. Much of Frank Arnold’s work is sourc...

Frank Arnold is thought by many to be one of the foremost abstract figurative painters and sculptors of our time. He is a living master whose work is considered to be both personal and universal. He divides his time between working studios in California, San Jose del Cabo and Mexico City. Arnold has exhibited his unique and expressive abstract-figurative style in multiple galleries and museums and is in numerous collections, worldwide. Red 8...