Richard Brydges Beechey

19th century British Marine painting - The storm - Seascape Lightening Ship

17th century Flemish old master painting depicting a peaceful countryside scenery by Lucas Van Uden Lucas Van Uden's life unfolded against the backdrop of the rich artistic tapestry...

Huge 17th century Old Master painting "Bacchus celebration" attributed to Niccolo de Simone The Bacchus celebration, also known as Bacchanalia, was...

19th century British genre painting "A happy animal family in the countryside", 1860 John Frederick Herring II, born in 1815, was an English painter who followed in the footsteps of...

17th century Flemish old Master painting The present painting is truly a little jewel with its vibrant colours and skilful brushwork. It depicts the Baptism of Christ, a depiction of a tale filled with hope and positivity, it is a very fine example of Malo's talent. We would like to thank Anna Orlando for her assistance in cataloguing this painting. A copy of her entry on this painting will be given to the buyer. She writes about the present painting: The painting illustrated here, unpublished, refers to Vincenzo (Vincent) Malò, a Flemish artist active in Italy and in particular in Genoa in the first half of the seventeenth century, by now well known. The critics who started studying him in the sixties of the last century recognized the initial confusion of our painter with Vincenzo Alemanno (1595-1675); many documents subsequently traced both in the Genoese and Roman archives have partially specified his biographical details, but certainly his identity. Son of a certain Nicola, Vincent trained in Antwerp with David Teniers the Elder and then with Rubens, he was intermittently enrolled in the painters' guild, between 1623 and 1634. It is unlikely that he first arrived in Genoa in 1625 , when the city was at war against the Savoys, and it is entirely probable that his stay in Italy fell between 1634 and the year of his death, documented in Rome in 1644. It were about ten fertile years, also thanks to the lessons from Rubens who had taught him to paint speedily...

Large 17th century Italian old master - Noli me tangere - Christ in the garden with Mary Magdalene The Italian art historian Federico Zeri has conserved a painting in his archives w...

17th century Old Master painting depicting the Infant Christ with Mary and St. Anne attributed to Nicolas de Liemaker The artist of the present work wonderfully captured the loving gaze of Maria, looking in awe at her child. One can sense the tenderness and love in her eyes. The eyes of Christ appears to be filled with wisdom and love and a finely painted aura crowns his and his mother's heads. St. Anne, Mary's mother, gently holds the infant whilst gazing adoringly at him. The painting is not only a beautiful depiction of Christ and his mother and grandmother, but also a sweet image of the tender bond between a mother's and their children. The vibrant and soft colours of the fabric create a soft cocoon around the figures and seem to further emphasis the beauty and importance of the depicted scenery and its protagonists. Nicolaas de Liemaecker (also spelled as Liemaker or Liemackere) was a Flemish painter born in Ghent in 1601. He was also known under the name Nicolaas Roose. His father was Jacobus de Liemaecker, a painter upon glass. Nicolaas is reported to have been trained by his father and Gaspard de Crayer II (1), an apprenticeship with Otto Van Veen has also been suggested. In 1624 he worked at the Court of the Bishop of Paderborn and for Ferdinand of Bavaria. He later returned to his native city, where he focused on religious and historical paintings. He was a very accomplished and celebrated artist who attained a high rank in his profession. He witnessed the baptisms of Pieter and Janne-Marie Van Hulle...

The Great Fire of London in September 1666 was one of the greatest disasters in the city’s history. The City, with its wooden houses crowded together in narrow streets, was a natural fire risk, and predictions that London would burn down became a shocking reality. The fire began in a bakery in Pudding Lane, an area near the Thames teeming with warehouses and shops full of flammable materials, such as timber, oil, coal, pitch and turpentine. Inevitably the fire spread rapidly from this area into the City. Our painting depicts the impact of the fire on those who were caught in it and creates a very dramatic impression of what the fire was like. Closer inspection reveals a scene of chaos and panic with people running out of the gates. It shows Cripplegate in the north of the City, with St Giles without Cripplegate to its left, in flames (on the site of the present day Barbican). The painting probably represents the fire on the night of Tuesday 4 September, when four-fifths of the City was burning at once, including St Paul's Cathedral. Old St Paul’s can be seen to the right of the canvas, the medieval church with its thick stone walls, was considered a place of safety, but the building was covered in wooden scaffolding as it was in the midst of being restored by the then little known architect, Christopher Wren and caught fire. Our painting seems to depict a specific moment on the Tuesday night when the lead on St Paul’s caught fire and, as the diarist John Evelyn described: ‘the stones of Paul’s flew like grenades, the melting lead running down the streets in a stream and the very pavements glowing with the firey redness, so as no horse, nor man, was able to tread on them.’ Although the loss of life was minimal, some accounts record only sixteen perished, the magnitude of the property loss was shocking – some four hundred and thirty acres, about eighty per cent of the City proper was destroyed, including over thirteen thousand houses, eighty-nine churches, and fifty-two Guild Halls. Thousands were homeless and financially ruined. The Great Fire, and the subsequent fire of 1676, which destroyed over six hundred houses south of the Thames, changed the appearance of London forever. The one constructive outcome of the Great Fire was that the plague, which had devastated the population of London since 1665, diminished greatly, due to the mass death of the plague-carrying rats in the blaze. The fire was widely reported in eyewitness accounts, newspapers, letters and diaries. Samuel Pepys recorded climbing the steeple of Barking Church from which he viewed the destroyed City: ‘the saddest sight of desolation that I ever saw.’ There was an official enquiry into the causes of the fire, petitions to the King and Lord Mayor to rebuild, new legislation and building Acts. Naturally, the fire became a dramatic and extremely popular subject for painters and engravers. A group of works relatively closely related to the present picture have been traditionally ascribed to Jan Griffier...

Although we have little bibliographical information on William James, we know that he was trained by Canaletto during the painter's stay in England between 1746 and 1755. Although he may never have been to Venice, William James remained under the influence of his master for a long time and became known for his paintings inspired by Canaletto's artworks. In this painting, William James is inspired by one of the twelve views of the Grand Canal painted by Canaletto for Joseph Smith, or more precisely by the engraving made by Antonio Visentini in 1735 after this painting. He delivers a very personal version, vibrant with colours, in which he brilliantly reproduces the moving surface of the sea, animated by the ever-changing traffic of the gondolas. 1. William James, the English follower...

During his stay in Italy from 1734 to 1752, Joseph Vernet made several trips to Naples between 1737 and 1746, where he painted numerous maritime scenes. The pre...

Expertise by Prof. Giancarlo Sestieri. Vincenzo Re (Parma, 1695 – Napoli?, 1762) born in Parma, was an Italian scenic designer who during his career worked as initially an assistant...

Simone Cantarini (Pesaro 1612 - Verona 1648) Adoration of the Magi Oil on paper applied to canvas, cm. 16,5 x 24 – with frame cm. 22 x 29 Antique sh...

Antonio Stom (Venice c. 1688 - 1734) Architectural Capriccio oil on canvas, cm. 88 x 113 - with frame cm. 106 x 132 Carved, sculpted and gilded wooden frame Expertise: Giancarlo S...