Alexandre De Spengler

Young woman sitting in artist's studio

This captivating work depicts a dramatic and tense scene of human interaction. In a dark interior, three men appear to be holding back a fourth individual, whose expression betrays s...

Work on canvas Golden wooden frame 75 x 88.5 x 4 cm

This Italian 19th century oil on alabastrer painting depicts an opulent interior in full ancient neoclassical Pompeian style with people festing. The figurative inner scene is painted on a rectangular alabaster slab and housed in a wonderful giltbronze frame resting on casted arrow feet. This is a single section of a bigger surtout de table. You can now use it as a decorative centrepiece on a table or on a console or turn it into a wall decoration. We can provide framing options in this case. The characters enjoy a rich banquet in an elaborate interior, the room renderings...

A FEAST OF THE GODS WITH VENUS AND BACCHUS Collections: With Appleby Brothers, London, June 1957; Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, London, 1961; John and Eileen Harris, acquired from the above, to 2015. Literature: Jacob Simon and Ellis Hillman, English Baroque Sketches: The Painted Interior in the Age of Thornhill, 1974, cat. no.12 (as by Louis Laguerre); Elizabeth Einberg (ed.), Manners and Morals: Hogarth and British Painting, 1700-1760, exh. cat., London (Tate Gallery), 1987, cat. no.10 (as by Louis Laguerre); Tabitha Barber and Tim Bachelor, British Baroque: Power and Illusion, exh. cat., London (Tate Britain), 2020. Exhibited: Twickenham, Marble Hill House, English Baroque Sketches: The Painted Interior in the Age of Thornhill, 1974, no.12 (as by Louis Laguerre); London, Tate Gallery, Manners and Morals: Hogarth and British Painting, 1700-1760, 1987, no.10 (as by Louis Laguerre); London, Tate Britain, British Baroque: Power and Illusion, cat. no 92, 2020. CUPID AND PSYCHE BEFORE JUPITER Collections: With Appleby Brothers, London, June 1957; Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, London, 1961; Anthony Hobson, acquired from the above, to 2015. These recently re-united paintings are the most ambitious surviving baroque ceiling sketches made in Britain in the early eighteenth century. From the Restoration until the rise of Palladianism in the 1720s decorative history painting formed the preeminent artistic discipline in Britain. It was a field dominated by Continental artists including the Italian Antonio Verrio and the Frenchmen Louis Laguerre and Louis Chéron...