Angelo Maria Crivelli Furniture

Angelo Maria Crivelli, known as il Crivellone (active in Milan between 1690 and 1730) Lion hunt Birds in a pond being harassed by dogs Measures: (2) Oil on canvas, 44.5 x 32.3 cm - with frame, 47.5 x 60 x 5.2 cm Even a superficial investigation into Crivellone's client would immediately reveal names of nobility and self-styled bourgeoisie, in line with the natural morphism of the seventeenth century, deeply indebted to Nordic formalism. Il Crivellone, born Angelo Maria Crivelli, so-called by critics to underline his specificity with respect to his son Giovanni, called Crivellino, is documented within the last decade of the seventeenth and the stroke of 1730, when the biographer Zani (1821) indicates the date of death. Orlandi (1719), on the other hand, clarified its Milanese origins, confirming its activity between 1662 and 1730. The artistic suggestion coming from the Flemish brush of Hondecoeter, Weenix, Snyders and Fyt embellished Crivelli's figurative research, already rich in glazes and tremulous lacquers thickened in the material definition, unlike what happened in his son's works. Works by the father Crivelli are still kept today in the Milanese civic collections, formerly in the Attendere Bolognini, Gasconi, Tarii collections, as well as in those of the Casati and Visconti di Saliceto and the Ala Ponzone Cremonese; this assiduous collecting prompted the collaboration of father and son, at least until 1720, when Crivellino left his father's shop to move to Boselli's. The family repertoire was nevertheless exploited indefinitely, first of all by the son, who made a contrite reprise of the present painting with Lion Hunt Scene, now in a private collection in Treviso, which however does not reach the virulent impact of his father, fading into an insistent fine work that suspends the violent charge of the chosen scene. The present couple, preferring two lively moments of hunting to the classical serenity of the countryside, formalism is in tune with the paintings executed by Crivellone for the Agliè Castle, the Stupinigi hunting lodge and the Santena Castle. In the present the typical lumpy traits of the artist are revealed, never frayed as those of the son: the animal coats are defined in locks and the basic backdrop of the work turns out to be an earthy brown, also characteristic of the Crivellino, but a clear sign that the latter practiced on his father's hunts. The artist's intention to capture the animals in a snapshot explains their coloristic fury in which the characteristic ductus of the brushstroke is revealed, persistently smoothing the main lines. The specialist's talent is revealed here in the combinations of ducks, agitated in the flight that finds its apex in the open lyre wing of the central specimen. These birds can be compared with the similar ones executed by Crivellone for the canvases Anitre in a pond attacked by two dogs (Stupinigi, Palazzina di caccia) and Ducks and woodcocks (Rome, Christie's 7 April 1987, lot 100), tracing the present also for composition general; but we must also remember Ducks and herons threatened by a fox (Milan, Manzoni-Finarte, May 1982, lot 268a) and Ducks in a pond threatened by a raptor (private collection). The expressive crudeness of the dogs that grab the lion, overturning and barking, returns, exemplary, in the paintings with Ambush to the deer and Assault to the bear (Milan, Cova Minotti collection), and in the couple Ducks in a pond frightened by dogs, in collections private; the inclination of the dogs, portrayed from the angle, and the same screeching of the mantle are recurring elements in Crivellone's canvases, as can also be seen in Caccia al boar (Milan, Finarte, auction of 16 May 2001, lot 153), Caccia ai wild boars (Milan, private collection), Contention between a dog and two cats approaching a group of poultry (Piacenza, private collection) and Fox and cat in the chicken coop (Milan, Castello Sforzesco). A specular scenic effect, echoing the same figurative structure, recurs in the contemporary works of David de Coninck...