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Old Masters Art

OLD MASTERS

Encompassing centuries of change in Europe between 1300 and 1800, from booms of prosperity to bloody revolutions, Old Masters describes a wide range of artists. The informal term was derived from the title of an artist who trained in a guild long enough to become a master, such as Leonardo da Vinci, who studied in a Florence painters’ guild. However, Old Masters paintings, prints and other art is now used to refer to work made by any artist with a high level of skill in painting, drawing, sculpture or printmaking who worked during this era.

The 15th century’s expansive trade and commerce spread culture across borders. A vibrant period of art emerged, bolstered by studies of anatomy and nature that influenced a new visual realism. From Raphael and Michelangelo in the Renaissance to Rembrandt van Rijn and Johannes Vermeer in the Dutch Golden Age, artists expressed emotion, naturalism, color and light in new ways. El Greco and Paolo Veronese were leaders in the dramatic style of Mannerism, while Caravaggio and Peter Paul Rubens demonstrated the movement and meticulous detail of Baroque art.

Historically, most attention was concentrated on male artists, but recent research and exhibitions have elevated the impactful work of women such as Rachel Ruysch and Artemisia Gentileschi. In late-18th-century France, female artists like Adélaïde Labille-Guiard and Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun were prominent names. Nevertheless, access to the academies and guilds was highly restricted for women, and even those able to establish practices were expected to adhere to portraits and still lifes rather than the grand history paintings being created by men.

Find a collection of Old Masters prints, paintings, drawings and watercolors and other art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Old Masters
Recognized Seller Listings
A dark bay racehorse held by his trainer at Newmarket Heath
Located in Stoke, Hampshire
Benjamin Killingbeck (act. 1769-1783) A dark bay racehorse held by his trainer on a racecourse Oil on canvas Canvas Size - 40 x 50 in Framed Size ...
Category

18th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Oil

Allegory of Abundance
Located in New York, NY
Painted in collaboration with Hendrick van Balen (Antwerp, 1575 – 1632). Provenance: Private Collection, Uruguay, since the 1930s. The eldest son of Jan Br...
Category

17th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Copper

Study of a Franciscan Saint, probably San Diego de Alcalá
Located in New York, NY
Provenance: Ivan E. Phillips, Montreal and New York, until 2023. The brothers Bartolomé Carducho and Vicente Carducho, both born and trained in Florence, settled in Spain where they made their careers. Vicente worked on numerous commissions for both the church and the Spanish court...
Category

17th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Paper, Chalk, Ink, Pen

The Veronica of the Virgin (Verónica de la Virgen)
Located in New York, NY
The panel has been attributed both to Joan de Joanes and his son Vicente Macip Comes (Valencia, ca. 1555 – 1623). Provenance: Private Collection, England, by 1886 (according to stencils on the reverse) Private Collection, New Jersey, until 2010 The Veil of Veronica, often called the Sudarium, is one of the most important and well-known relics of Christ. According to legend, Veronica offered Christ her veil as he carried the cross to his crucifixion. He wiped his face with the veil, which left the cloth miraculously imprinted with his image. Depictions of Christ’s face on a veil, or simply images that focused in on Christ’s face, were treasured objects of religious devotion. The popularity of this format also inspired similar images of the face of the Virgin. The iconographic type of the present painting is known as the Veronica of the Virgin, which was especially favored in late medieval and early Renaissance Spain. Distinct from the images of the suffering Christ, the Veronica of the Virgin is based on the legend that Saint Luke painted a portrait of Mary from life. Although scholars have sometimes mistaken them for portraits of Queen Isabella I of Castile (known as Isabel la Católica) or as a depiction of Saint Maria Toribia (known as María de la Cabeza, or, Mary of the Head), paintings like this one were clearly intended as images of the Virgin in the style of Saint Luke’s lost portrait. The Veronica of the Virgin was especially popular in Valencia, and depictions of this subject produced there all stem back to one visual prototype: a Byzantine image in the city’s cathedral (Fig. 1). This early treatment of the Veronica was given to the cathedral in 1437 by Martin the Humane, King of Aragon and Valencia, who promoted religious veneration of the Veronica of the Virgin as part of the celebration of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. This devotion spread throughout Martin’s kingdom and particularly took hold in Valencia, where the Byzantine image resided. The image, which is displayed in a gold reliquary...
Category

16th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

(Large!) UNA DELLE QUATTRO FIGURE RAPPRESENTANTI QUATTRO VITTORIE
Located in Santa Monica, CA
GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI (1710-1778) UNA DELLE QUATTRO FIGURE RAPPRESENTANTI QUATTTRO VITTORIE, (Focillon 330, Wilton-Ely 463) 1750-1756 Etching, Plate 48 from “Le Antichita Romane“ vol. 3. Engraved by Jean Barbault...
Category

1750s Old Masters Art

Materials

Etching

Portrait of a Young Boy
Located in New York, NY
Signed and dated, lower left: Louise Hersent/ 1823 Provenance: Private Collection, Chicago, by 1996 Private Collection, Florida This charming portrait of a young boy is the work of Louise-Marie-Jeanne Hersent, a little-known woman artist of the French Restoration often identified by her maiden name, Mauduit. While Hersent—as we will call her here following the signature on the painting—has been understudied, the known details of her life and career reveal that she held a privileged position in artistic life in the early nineteenth century in Paris. She exhibited at the Salon from 1810 until 1824, and in 1821 she married the painter Louis Hersent, a successful pupil of Jacques-Louis David who was patronized by Louis XVIII and Charles X. It is likely through her husband’s royal patronage that Hersent’s Louis XIV Visits Peter the Great was purchased for the Royal Collection in Versailles. In 1806, while still Louise Mauduit, she painted a portrait of Napoleon’s youngest sister, Pauline Bonaparte...
Category

1820s Old Masters Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Cuzco School Baptismal Dish
Located in New York, NY
Provenance: Manuel Ortíz de Zevallos y García, Peru; and by descent in the family to: Private Collection, New York. This impressive baptismal dish is an example of eighteenth-cent...
Category

18th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Silver

!6th c. VIEW OF FLORENCE
Located in Santa Monica, CA
SEBASTIAN MUNSTER (1488-1552) FLORENCZ - -- FIGUR UND GELEGENHEIT DER EDLEN UND HOCH BERHÜMPTEN STATT FLORENTZ. . c 1550 (Fauser, #3925.) Woodcut f...
Category

16th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Woodcut

The Infant Christ and St. John Playing with the Lamb, after Peter Paul Rubens
Located in Fairlawn, OH
The Infant Christ and St. John Playing with the Lamb, after Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) Woodcut, trimmed and tipped to support Initialed in the block bottom ...
Category

1630s Old Masters Art

Materials

Woodcut

VEDUTA DEGLI AVANZI De’MAUSOLEI E DELLE FABBRICHE…...
Located in Santa Monica, CA
GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI (Italian 1720-1778) VEDUTA DEGLI AVANZI De’MAUSOLEI E DELLE FABBRICHE…c 1756 (Hind 83; Focillon 20.A.293; Giesecke 116; Wilton-E...
Category

1750s Old Masters Art

Materials

Etching

Market Day
Located in Storrs, CT
Market Day. 1889. Etching and drypoint. Wisselingh 42. 7 5/8 x 5 13/16 (sheet 8 3/8 x 6 3/8). Edition 100. Printed on cream laid paper. Mat burn and toning ...
Category

Late 19th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Etching

The Monumental Tablet
Located in Fairlawn, OH
The Monumental Tablet Etching, engraving, drypoint and burnishing, c. 1748 Series: Grotteschi (Grotesques, 4 plates) Original, unwashed condition. Excellent. Second edition first is...
Category

1740s Old Masters Art

Materials

Etching

HERCULES FIGHTS ADRAGON center, ACHELOUS CARRYING OFF DEIANEIRA left
Located in Santa Monica, CA
GIULIO BONASONE (Italian 1500/10-1574) HERCULES FiGHTS ADRAGON center, ACHELOUS CARRYING OFF DEIANEIRA left 1531–76 (Bartsch XV.157.178; Massari 1983, no.230) Engraving. Letter...
Category

16th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Engraving

Street in Smyrna
Located in Storrs, CT
Street in Smyrna. 1889. Etching. Wisselingh 34. 7 x 5 1/4 (sheet 12 7/8 x 8 7/8).Edition 100, number 49. A rich, tonal impression printed on Strasbourg cream laid paper on the full s...
Category

Late 19th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Drypoint, Etching

VEDUTA del SEPOLCRO della Famiglia PLAUZIA per la strada che Conduce da Roma....
Located in Santa Monica, CA
GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI (Italian 1720-1778) VEDUTA del SEPOLCRO della Famiglia PLAUZIA per la strada che Conduce da Roma a Tivoli vicino a Ponte Lugan...
Category

1750s Old Masters Art

Materials

Etching

Cavalcade.
Located in Storrs, CT
A Cavalcade. 1888. Etching. Wisselingh 107. 4 5/8 x 4 (sheet 11 5/8 x 8 3/4). Edition 100, #46. A richly inked impression printed on Strasbourg cream laid paper. Printed on the ful...
Category

Late 19th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Etching

Turkish Funeral.
Located in Storrs, CT
A Turkish Funeral. 1889. Etching. Wisselingh 60. 3 3/4 x 5 1/2 (sheet 8 3/4 x 11 7/8). Edition 100, #9. A richly inked impression printed on Strasbourg cream laid paper. Printed on...
Category

Late 19th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Etching

The Deluge - JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER (1775 - 1851)
Located in Santa Monica, CA
(after) JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER (1775 - 1851) THE DELUGE, 1828. Mezzotint, Engraved by I. P. Quilly after a painting by J. M.W. Turner R.A.. Image ...
Category

1820s Old Masters Art

Materials

Mezzotint

A Windmill above an Arched Bridge, at left a Quay Wall
Located in New York, NY
Inscribed “159” in the upper right Provenance: (Possibly) The Van Goyen sketchbook which in 1845 belonged to Andrew Geddes, A.R.A. (1783-1844), London; his sale, Christie's, London,...
Category

1650s Old Masters Art

Materials

Paper, Chalk, India Ink, Watercolor

The 1564 Medici Danti Map of California
By Fra Egnazio Danti
Located in New York, NY
Florentine, Probably Seventeenth Century Titled L’ultime parti note nel Indie occidentali Dated on the edge of the cartouche: “M.D. LXIII. M.AG” [1564…the month of August] In the 1560s Cosimo I de’Medici, the powerful Duke of Florence, undertook a major renovation of the Palazzo Vecchio, the venerable palace that to this day dominates the city at the Piazza della Signoria. For the Sala della Guardaroba, literally the wardrobe room, but in fact the storeroom of the Duke’s most precious holdings, Cosimo conceived of a grand decorative project that was to reflect in one space the entire cosmos --both an indication of the Duke’s ambition and an allusion to his name. The plan, supervised by Giorgio Vasari, involved the construction of walnut cabinets to contain the Medici treasures, on the outside doors of which were to be placed large hand-painted maps specially commissioned to document and illustrate the current knowledge of the world. Portraits of famous men were to decorate the tops of the cabinets and two large globes –one representing the terrestrial world, the other celestial—were to descend from openings in the ceiling. The commission for the maps, inspired by Ptolemy’s Geographia, was given to the celebrated mathematician and cosmographer, Fra Egnazio Danti (Perugia 1536-1585 Alatri). Fifty-three maps were ultimately created. Thirty were conceived and executed by Danti between 1563 and 1575. The remaining twenty-three were completed by Stefano Bonsignori between 1576 and 1686. They remain in place in Florence in the room for which they were created. The present work is an exact-size painted, drawn and inscribed copy of Danti’s map of California...
Category

17th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Canvas, Pen, Gouache, Watercolor, Ink, Paper

The Martyrdom of the Santi Quattro Coronati
Located in New York, NY
Provenance: Private Collection, UK After initial training under Justus Suttermans and Vincenzo Dandini, in 1673 Anton Domenico Gabbiani embar...
Category

17th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Chalk, Paper, Ink, Pen

Still Life with Squash, Gourds, Stoneware, and a Basket with Fruit and Cheese
Located in New York, NY
Provenance: Selma Herringman, New York, ca. 1955-2013; thence by descent to: Private Collection, New York, 2013-2020 This seventeenth century Spanish still-life of a laden table, known as a bodegón, stands out for its dramatic lighting and for the detailed description of each object. The artist’s confident use of chiaroscuro enables the sliced-open squash in the left foreground to appear as if emerging out of the darkness and projecting towards the viewer. The light source emanates from the upper left, illuminating the array, and its strength is made apparent by the reflections on the pitcher, pot, and the fruit in the basket. Visible brush strokes accentuate the vegetables’ rough surfaces and delicate interiors. Although the painter of this striking work remains unknown, it is a characteristic example of the pioneering Spanish still-lifes of the baroque period, which brought inanimate objects alive on canvas. In our painting, the knife and the large yellow squash boldly protrude off the table. Balancing objects on the edge of a table was a clever way for still-life painters to emphasize the three-dimensionality of the objects depicted, as well a way to lend a sense of drama to an otherwise static image. The knife here teeters on the edge, appearing as if it might fall off the table and out of the painting at any moment. The shape and consistency of the squash at left is brilliantly conveyed through the light brush strokes that define the vegetable’s fleshy and feathery interior. The smaller gourds—gathered together in a pile—are shrouded partly in darkness and stand out for their rugged, bumpy exterior. The stoneware has a brassy glaze, and the earthy tones of the vessels are carefully modulated by their interaction with the light and shadow that falls across them. The artist has cleverly arranged the still-life in a V-shaped composition, with a triangular slice of cheese standing upright, serving as its pinnacle. Independent still-lifes only became an important pictorial genre in the first years of the seventeenth century. In Italy, and particularly through the revolutionary works of Caravaggio, painted objects became carriers of meaning, and their depiction and arrangement the province of serious artistic scrutiny. Caravaggio famously asserted that it was equally difficult to paint a still-life as it was to paint figures, and the elevation of this new art form would have profound consequences to the present day. In Spain Juan Sanchez Cotan...
Category

17th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

The Golden Calf - Nuremberg Chronicle, (528 Years Old)
Located in Santa Monica, CA
NUREMBERG CHRONICLE, 1493 THE GOLDEN CALF (THE CALF OF GOD) 1493 Woodcut. from "Liber Chronicarum." Printed by Anton Koberger text by Hartmann Sc...
Category

15th Century and Earlier Old Masters Art

Materials

Woodcut

A Musical Party
Located in New York, NY
Provenance: Dr. George Hamilton, Massachusetts; and by descent. Private Collection, Ohio, until 2021. Exhibited: (Possibly) Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts (according to a handwritten inscription on the reverse). This drawing by an anonymous, 16th-century German hand presents a delightful scene of nymphs—mostly nude but some draped with cloth—making music in an outdoor setting. The composition is executed within a roundel and centers on the harpsichord played by the figure seen from behind. She is accompanied by a host of other instruments, including horns, a harp, and a lira da gamba played by figures gathered nearby, several of which are positioned along the curved edges of the visual field. Two satyrs observe the merrymaking—one leans on the harpsichord while the other holds aloft a cup, presumably of wine, adding a bacchic element to the revelry. The drawing was previously owned by Dr. George Hamilton, scholar of modern art and Director of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown (1966–1977). Hamilton played...
Category

16th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Ink, Paper, Pen

The Flight into Egypt
Located in New York, NY
Inscribed: 3. una Madonna che va in Egitto, verso, and Madonna che va in Egitto, recto Provenance: Private Collection, UK, since 1999 This expressive and boldly executed drawing is the work of Luca...
Category

16th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Ink, Paper, Chalk, Pen

Moses Breaking the Tablet of the Law (after Parmigianino. 1503-1540)
By Daniel Ramée
Located in Storrs, CT
Moses Breaking the Tablet of the Law. (after Parmigianino. 1503-1540.) Pencil drawing mounted onto paper. 12 1/4 x 3 3/4 inches. Collector's seal verso: Gustav Grunwald, (Lugt 1155b)...
Category

19th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Pencil

OBSEQUIO á el MAESTRO (‘A gift for the master’)
Located in Santa Monica, CA
FRANCISCO de GOYA y LUCIENTES (1746 -1828) OBSEQUIO á el MAESTRO (‘A gift for the master’) Plate 47 from the 1st edition of Los Caprichos (Blas, ...
Category

1790s Old Masters Art

Materials

Etching, Aquatint

A Mother and Child, Two Children, and a Dog
Located in New York, NY
Provenance: Elsie de Woolfe, Lady Mendl, Paris; by whom given in 1950 to: Arlene Dahl, New York (until 2021) Inventive, whimsical, and fantastic; delightful, imaginative, and maca...
Category

17th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Paper, Pen, Ink

PERU
Located in Santa Monica, CA
JOHANNES JANSSON (1588 - 1664) PERU, engraving with early coloring. Platemark 15 1/8 x 19 3/8 inches, sheet 17 x 20 1/2 A nice example of one of the earliest maps of Peru. From the ...
Category

1630s Old Masters Art

Materials

Engraving

(PHILOSOPHER READING)
By Ferdinand Bol
Located in Santa Monica, CA
Circle of or a follower of Ferdinand Bol - (1616-1680) (PHILOSOPHER READING) ca 1700 Etching on thin laid paper attached to support sheet at the top sh...
Category

18th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Etching

The Assumption of the Virgin
Located in New York, NY
Provenance: Unidentified collector’s mark “D.G.R,” lower right (Lugt 757b) Wilhelm Suida (1877–1959), New York; by descent to: Robert L. and Bertina Suida Manning, New York, until 1996 Private Collection, USA This impressive drawing of the Assumption of the Virgin is the work of the Genoese artist Giovanni Battista Paggi. The son of a nobleman, Paggi received a humanist education and was a self-taught artist. According to Paggi’s first biographer, Raffaele Soprani, it was only after encountering Luca...
Category

16th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Ink, Paper, Pen

AMERICAE - Sive Novi Orbis, Nova Descriptio
Located in Santa Monica, CA
ABRAHAM ORTELIUS (1527 - 1598) AMERICAE SIVE NOVI ORBIS, NOVA DESCRIPTIO, 1587 (1603) (Van Den Broecke 11, Burden 64; Schwartz & Ehrenberg 69) Engraving. A very good, well printed...
Category

16th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Engraving

Mr. Garrick in the Character of Richard the 3rd - FINE IMPRESSION
Located in Santa Monica, CA
WILLIAM HOGRTH (1697 - 1764) MR. GARRICK IN THE CHARACTER OF RICHARD THE 3RD (Shakespear Act 5 Scene 7) (Paulson 1970.165 ii/ii; Paulson 1989.165 ii/ii;, Dobson and Armstrong p. 20...
Category

1740s Old Masters Art

Materials

Etching, Engraving

El Vergponzoso (The Shamefaced One)
Located in Fairlawn, OH
El Vergponzoso (The Shamefaced One) etching & aquatint, 1799 Unsigned (as are all Goya etchings) From: Los Caprichos, Plate 54 From the First Edition, pri...
Category

1790s Old Masters Art

Materials

Aquatint

Adoration of the Shepherds
By Peter Paul Rubens
Located in New York, NY
Adoration of the Shepherds after Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577-1640), engraved by Pierre-Franois Basan (French, 1723-1797), engraving, c. 1750, in black on ivory laid paper, 282 x 200 mm., with small margins. In very good condition. A fine proof impression, before letters. A draft printing of letters is visible, lower left, below image: “P P Rubens inv.”; lower right: “F. Basan excudit”. Basan’s engraving after Rubens may be modeled after another engraving of the Adoration after Rubens by Theodor Galle (1571-1633), which appeared as an illustration to the 1618 reprint of 1616 edition of “Missale Romanum...
Category

1750s Old Masters Art

Materials

Engraving

Baptism of Christ
Located in New York, NY
Provenance: Achillito Chiesa, Milan Luigi Albrighi, Florence, by 1 July 1955 with Marcello and Carlo Sestieri, Rome, 1969 Private Collection, Connecticut Exhibited: Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, Massachusetts (on loan, 2012) Literature: Carlo Volpe, “Alcune restituzioni al Maestro dei Santi Quirico e Giulitta,” in Quaderni di Emblema 2: Miscellanea di Bonsanti, Fahy, Francisci, Gardner, Mortari, Sestieri, Volpe, Zeri, Bergamo, 1973, pp. 19-20, fig. 18, as by the Master of Saints Quiricus and Julitta (now identified as Borghese di Piero). This fine predella panel depicting the Baptism...
Category

15th Century and Earlier Old Masters Art

Materials

Wood Panel, Tempera

A Wolf
Located in New York, NY
Provenance: The Marchesi Strozzi, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence Sale, Christie’s, London, May 20, 1993, lot 315, as by Carl Borromaus Andreas Ruthart...
Category

17th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Paper, Canvas, Oil

THE DRAGON ARUM
Located in Santa Monica, CA
DR. ROBERT JOHN THORNTON (circa 1768- 1837) THE DRAGON ARUM, 1801 (Dunthorne plate 161, pg. 250 i/iii; Nissen 1 955) Mezzotint printed in Payne's grey...
Category

Early 1800s Old Masters Art

Materials

Mezzotint

Portrait of a Man
Located in New York, NY
Provenance: with Leo Blumenreich and Julius Böhler, Munich, 1924 Dr. Frederic Goldstein Oppenheimer (1881-1963), San Antonio, Texas; by whom given to: Abraham M. Adler, New York, un...
Category

16th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Oil, Panel

A Fairy Tale
Located in Storrs, CT
A Fairy Tale. 1897. Etching. Wisselingh 18. 2 3/4 x 4 3/8 (sheet 5 9/16 x 7 5/8). Edition 100, #51. A rich impression printed on cream laid paper. Signed an...
Category

Late 19th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Etching

Esther in the Women's House of Ahasuerus
By Artus Wolfort
Located in New York, NY
Born in Antwerp, Artus Wolffordt received his training in Dordrecht where he became a master in 1603 at the age of twenty-two. He returned to his native city in 1615 and initially worked as an assistant to Otto van Veen...
Category

17th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Panel, Oil

Scene II, Le Nozze Degli Dei
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Scene II, Le Nozze Degli Dei Etching, 1637 Signed in the plate lower left The scene depicts the initial moment when Diana is revealed, surrounded by her nymphs, celebrating a success...
Category

1630s Old Masters Art

Materials

Etching

Descending from the Cross, by Torchlight
Located in New York, NY
Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn 1606 Leiden – Amsterdam 1669 The Descent from the Cross by Torchlight 1654 etching and drypoint; sheet 213 x 163 mm (8 3/8 x 6 7/16 inches) Bart...
Category

17th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Drypoint, Etching

An Architectural Capriccio with the Preaching of an Apostle
By Giovanni Paolo Panini
Located in New York, NY
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...
Category

18th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

WORLD MAP - Planisphaerium Terrestre Sive Terrarum Orbis... 1696
By Carel Allard
Located in Santa Monica, CA
CAREL ALLARD (1648 – 1709) PLANISPHAERIUM TERRESTRE SIVE TERRARUM ORBIS… 1696 (Shirley 578) Engraving, 20 ½ x 23 ½”, sheet 21 x 24 1/8". A stunning double hemisphere World Map...
Category

17th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Engraving

Study after Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgment”
By Michelangelo Buonarroti
Located in New York, NY
Italian School, 16th Century Provenance: Private Collection, New York This intriguing drawing is a study by an anonymous 16th-century Italian artist after a vignette in Michelangelo’s fresco of The Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel. The altar wall of the Sistine Chapel was already richly decorated when Pope Clement VII commissioned Michelangelo to paint his Last Judgment...
Category

16th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Gouache, Paper

Head of an Angel
Located in New York, NY
Procaccini was born in Bologna, but his family moved to Milan when the artist was eleven years old. His artistic education was evidently familial— from his father Ercole and his elder brothers Camillo and Carlo Antonio, all painters—but his career began as a sculptor, and at an early age: his first known commission, a sculpted saint for the Duomo of Milan, came when he was only seventeen years old. Procaccini’s earliest documented painting, the Pietà for the Church of Santa Maria presso San Celso in Milan, was completed by 1604. By this time the artist had made the trip to Parma recorded by his biographers, where he studied Correggio, Mazzola Bedoli, and especially Parmigianino; reflections of their work are apparent throughout Procaccini's career. As Dr. Hugh Brigstocke has recently indicated, the present oil sketch is preparatory for the figure of the angel seen between the heads of the Virgin and St. Charles Borrommeo in Procaccini's altarpiece in the Church of Santa Afra in Brescia (ill. in Il Seicento Lombardo; Catalogo dei dipinti e delle sculture, exh. cat. Milan 1973, no. 98, pl. 113). As such it is the only known oil sketch of Procaccini's that can be directly connected with an extant altarpiece. The finished canvas, The Virgin and Child with Saints Charles Borrommeo and Latino with Angels, remains in the church for which it was painted; it is one of the most significant works of Procaccini's maturity and is generally dated after the artist's trip to Genoa in 1618. The Head of an Angel is an immediate study, no doubt taken from life, but one stylistically suffused with strong echoes of Correggio and Leonardo. Luigi Lanzi, writing of the completed altarpiece in 1796, specifically commented on Procaccini's indebtedness to Correggio (as well as the expressions of the angels) here: “Di Giulio Cesare...
Category

17th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Paper, Canvas, Oil

Landscape with Roman Ruins
By (After) Peter Paul Rubens
Located in Chicago, IL
Engraving after Peter Paul Rubens (Siegen 1577 - 1640 Antwerp), executed by Schelte Adams Bolswert (Bolsward c. 1586 -1659 Antwerp). Bolswert was one of the major printmakers in the ...
Category

17th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Engraving

Flora with her Nymphs, after Giulio Romano
Located in New York, NY
GIULIO BONASONE (1510-1576) AFTER GIULIO ROMANO (CIRCA1499-1546) Flora with her Nymphs engraving, circa1531-50, on laid paper, watermark Two crossed Arro...
Category

16th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Engraving

View of St. John’s Cathedral, Antigua
Located in New York, NY
Provenance: Robert Hollberton, Antigua, ca. 1841 Private Collection, New York The present painting depicts Old St. John’s Cathedral on the island of Antigua. The church was erected in the 1720s on the designs of the architect Robert Cullen. It measured 130 feet by 50 feet with north and south porches 23 x 20 ½ feet. The tower, 50 feet high with its cupola, was added in 1789. The church was elevated to the status of a cathedral, but disaster struck in the form of an earthquake that destroyed the building on 8 February 1843. A memorandum of that date relates the event: “On Wednesday, 8th February, 1843, this island was visited by a most terrific and destructive earthquake. At twenty minutes before eleven o’clock in the forenoon, while the bell was ringing for prayers, and the venerable Robert Holberton was in the vestry-room, awaiting the arrival of persons to have their marriage solemnized, before the commencement of the morning service, the whole edifice, from one end to the other, was suddenly and violently agitated. Every one within the church, after the first shock, was compelled to escape for his life. The tower was rent from the top to the bottom; the north dial of the clock precipitated to the ground with a dreadful crash; the east parapet wall of the tower thrown upon the roof of the church; almost the whole of the north-west wall by the north gallery fell out in a mass; the north-east wall was protruded beyond the perpendicular; the altar-piece, the public monument erected to the memory of lord Lavington, and the private monuments, hearing the names of Kelsick, Warner, Otley, and Atkinson, fell down piecemeal inside; a large portion of the top of the east wall fell, and the whole of the south-east wall was precipitated into the churchyard, carrying along with it two of the cast-iron windows, while the other six remained projecting from the walls in which they had been originally inserted; a large pile of heavy cut stones and masses of brick fell down at the south and at the north doors; seven of the large frontpipes of the organ were thrown out by the violence of the shock, and many of the metal and wooden pipes within displaced; the massive basin of the font was tossed from the pedestal on which it rested, and pitched upon the pavement beneath uninjured. Thus, within the space of three minutes, this church was reduced to a pile of crumbling ruins; the walls that were left standing being rent in every part, the main roof only remaining sound, being supported by the hard wood pillars.” The entrance from the southern side into the cathedral, which was erected in 1789, included two imposing statues, one of Saint John the Divine and the other of Saint John the Baptist in flowing robes. It is said that these statues were confiscated by the British Navy from the French ship HMS Temple in Martinique waters in 1756 during the Seven Years’ War and moved to the church. The statues are still in situ and can be seen today, much as they appeared in Bisbee’s painting, but with the new cathedral in the background (Fig. 1). Little is known of the career of Ezra Bisbee. He was born in Sag Harbor, New York in 1808 and appears to have had a career as a political cartoonist and a printmaker. His handsome Portrait of President Andrew Jackson is dated 1833, and several political lithographs...
Category

19th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Venus and Adonis
By Baron Pierre Narcisse Guerin (workshop)
Located in Paris, FR
Baron Pierre Narcisse GUERIN (Circle of) 1774-1833 French Venus et Adonis (Venus and Adonis) Oil on canvas Canvas: 53" high x 39 1/2" wide Frame: ...
Category

19th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

The Great Landscapes VI (2nd State)
Located in Chicago, IL
Watermark: Wappen von Amsterdam mit Nebenmarke
Category

17th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Etching

Holy Family with the Infant St. John the Baptist
Located in New York, NY
Lubin Baugin (Pithiviers 1610 – 1663 Paris) Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist Oil on canvas 22 x 42 ¼ inches (55.9 x 107.3 cm) Provenance: Marcello and Carlo ...
Category

17th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

St. Jerome in the Desert
Located in Chicago, IL
Engraving by Joannes and Lucas van Doetecum (Deventer active by 1551 - circa 1569 Haarlem) in the manner of Peter Bruegel the Elder
Category

16th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Engraving

Portrait of a Gentleman
Located in New York, NY
Pen, black ink, wash, and white heightening on blue paper Provenance: with F. R. Meatyard, London, around 1925; where acquired by: Dan Fellows Platt, Englewood, New Jersey; by descent to his wife: Ethel Bliss Platt; by whom given to: The Princeton University Art Museum; by whom consigned to: Schaeffer Galleries, New York, 1944; where acquired by: Wilhelm Suida; thence by descent to: Robert L. and Bertina Suida Manning, New York, 1959-1996 Private Collection, USA Literature: Janos Scholz, “Italian Drawings in The Art Museum, Princeton University,” The Burlington Magazine, vol. 109, no. 770 (May 1967), pp. 296, 299. Elaine Claye, “A Group of Portrait Drawings by Jacopo Amigoni...
Category

18th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Ink, Paper, Pen

The Great Landscapes II, (4th State)
Located in Chicago, IL
Watermark: Schellenkappe (Foolscap) Similar to Churchill no. 340
Category

17th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Etching

New Map of the Terraqueous Globe - WORLD MAP - CALIFORNIA AS AN ISLAND
Located in Santa Monica, CA
EDWARD WELLS (British 1667- 1727) A NEW MAP of the TERRAQUEOUS GLOBE - according to the latest Discoveries and most general Divisions of it into CONTINENTS and OCEANS, 1700-01 (Shirley 609) Engraved by Michael Burghers, Oxford. Hand-colored, Platemark 14 1/4 x 20 1/8 inches. Central cartouche flanked by figures representing the continents with dedication to William, Duke of Gloucester...
Category

Early 1700s Old Masters Art

Materials

Engraving

Madonna and Child and Saint with Two Angels
Located in Chicago, IL
This confidently executed drawing is a study related to Maratta’s painting La Vergine appare a S.Stanislao Kotska 1687 in the second chapel to the right, in the church of S. Andrea a...
Category

17th Century Old Masters Art

Materials

Chalk

Old Masters art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Old Masters art available for sale on 1stDibs. Works in this style were very popular during the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artists have continued to produce works inspired by this movement. If you’re looking to add art created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of orange, yellow, blue and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Charles Amand Durand, Giuseppe Vasi, Thomas Holloway, and Vincenzo Campana. Frequently made by artists working with Etching, and Paint and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Old Masters art, so small editions measuring 0.4 inches across are also available. Prices for art made by famous or emerging artists can differ depending on medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $11 and tops out at $1,495,000, while the average work sells for $546.

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