Gilt Decorative Art

An impressive large decorative wall plate by Zsolnay Pécs, Hungary, richly decorated with an exotic parrot surrounded by stylized flowerin...

A distinguished collection of four vintage Finnish herbariums, each featuring a carefully preserved botanical specimen accompanied by its original handwritten identification label. T...

A black-yellow, dark green antique Austrian still life oil on canvas painting depicting a clear glass vase with many flowers painted by Franz Xaver Pieler in a hand carved, original gilded wood frame, in good condition. The colorful painting depicts a dining table in a DIM room, representing the 19th...

A gorgeous pink and gold gilt porcelain German dinner plate charger or wall art, circa early-20th century, Germany. Plate has a heavy gold gilt edge and center; both are embossed wit...

A pair of Continental wax portrait reliefs of Mr and Mrs Luke Foreman, early 19th century in date. Each set against a faux-finished ground with a gilt rolled-paper border, fitted wi...

A superb pair of wax portrait reliefs by Richard Cockle Lucas, British, 1800-1883, in convex glazed giltwood frames, circa 1850. The wax portraits are of Mr and Mrs W H Blaauw, date...

A pair of 17th century Chinese Huaniaohua paintings created in 1665 with the watercolor mixture Gouche. The pair showcases beautiful floral scenes in the centuries old tradition of...

Francois Lembo Gilded Ceramic and Enamel Virgin & Child Icon, 1960's. In great vintage condition with age appropriate wear. One small edge nick that looks to have been painted over...

This is a super rare opportunity to acquire one of these beautifully reduced versions of the facade bas-relief of the Folies-Bergeres cabaret by Maurice Picaud aka Pico (1900-1977). ...

Antique Bronze Gilt Frame with Pre-Raphaelite Style Painting - This exquisite object presents a richly detailed bronze gilt frame, adorned with an elaborate floral wreath that encirc...

Chinoiserie Birds & Pineapple Motifs Wall Panel in Black Lacquered and Gilt Polychromed Wood, Spain 1950s Manufactured in Spain at the mid-20th century period in the style of Chi...

This is a super rare opportunity to acquire one of these beautifully reduced versions of 'bathing ladies' the original being located in the famous Paris ''HOTEL des Collectionneur. T...

Pair of Chinoiserie Birds & Floral Motifs Wall Panels in Red Lacquered and Gilt Polychromed Wood, Spain 1950s Manufactured in Spain at the mid-20th century period in the style of Chi...

Salvator Rosa last 17th century giltwood frame. Internal measurements cm 24 x 32.5 Pure example of Italian Salvator Rosa gild wood frame of 17th century. "Salvator Rosa" is the famo...

A very fine and Large Italian 18th-19th century oval-shaped oil on canvas titled "The Triumph of Venice" After the original work by the master Paolo Veronese (Venice, 1528-1588). The original of this painting hangs in the Palazzo Ducale, Venice. The 'Ricci' coloration suggests a late 17th-early 18th century date. In 1715 Charles de la Fosse advised Ricci to paint only "Veroneses and no more Riccis", Venice, circa 1800. Measures: Height: 45 1/4 inches (115 cm). Width: 29 inches (73.7 cm). Frame height: 58 1/4 inches (147.9 cm). Frame width: 43 1/4 inches (109.9 cm). Frame depth: 5 1/4 (13.3 cm). Provenance: Royal Academy of Scotland. Paolo Veronese (Born 1528, Verona, Republic of Venice - died April 9, 1588, Venice) was an Italian painter of the Renaissance in Venice, famous for paintings such as The Wedding at...

Large size, great shape and excellent condition antique coat rack. If you are looking for a stylish and practical coat rack in the Arts & Crafts style then this period piece could be perfect for you. It is truly stylish, entirely original and, as you can see in our images, it is in very good condition. This quality antique is handcrafted from solid oak and it comes with the inlaid, hand painted and glazed tiles. These tiles are extra special, because on top of the glazing are unique, gilt and stylized flower motifs. This luxurious and colorful coat rack also comes with all the original and aesthetically beautiful hooks...

A fine and large 19th century oil on canvas after Bartolomé Esteban Murrillo's (Spanish, 1617-1682) Masterpiece "Beggar Boys Playing Dice" (The original work by Murillo was painted in 1675). The impressive artwork depicts two young boys playing dice while another eats a piece of fruit as his dog watches on., within an ornate gildwood and gesso frame bearing a label from the faming company Bigelow & Jordan. The original work by Murillo is currently at the Alte Pinakothek Museum in Munich, Germany. The present work is signed: L. Rüber. Circa: Munich, Late 19th Century. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (born late December 1617, baptized January 1, 1618 – April 3, 1682) was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children. These lively, realist portraits of flower girls, street urchins, and beggars constitute an extensive and appealing record of the everyday life of his times. Murillo was born to Gaspar Esteban and María Pérez Murillo. He may have been born in Seville or in Pilas, a smaller Andalusian town. It is clear that he was baptized in Seville in 1618, the youngest son in a family of fourteen. His father was a barber and surgeon. His parents died when Murillo was still very young, and the artist was largely brought up by his aunt and uncle. Murillo began his art studies under Juan del Castillo in Seville. There he became familiar with Flemish painting and the "Treatise on Sacred Images" of Molanus (Ian van der Meulen or Molano). The great commercial importance of Seville at the time ensured that he was subject to influences from other regions. His first works were influenced by Zurbarán, Jusepe de Ribera and Alonzo Cano, and he shared their strongly realist approach. As his painting developed, his more important works evolved towards the polished style that suited the bourgeois and aristocratic tastes of the time, demonstrated especially in his Roman Catholic religious works. In 1642, at the age of 26, he moved to Madrid, where he most likely became familiar with the work of Velázquez, and would have seen the work of Venetian and Flemish masters in the royal collections; the rich colors and softly modeled forms of his subsequent work suggest these influences. In 1645 he returned to Seville and married Beatriz Cabrera y Villalobos, with whom he eventually had eleven children. In that year, he painted eleven canvases for the convent of St. Francisco el Grande in Seville. These works depicting the miracles of Franciscan saints vary between the Zurbaránesque tenebrism of the Ecstasy of St Francis and a softly luminous style (as in Death of St Clare...

A fine Italian 19th century oil painting on canvas "La Madonna della Seggiola" after Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino 1483-1520) The circular canvas depicting a seated Madonna holding an infant Jesus Christ next to a child Saint John the Baptist, all within a massive carved gilt wood and gesso frame (all high quality gilt is original) which is identical to the frame on Raphael's original artwork. This painting is a 19th Century copy of Raphael's Madonna della Seggiola painted in 1514 and currently exhibited and part of the permanent collection at the Palazzo Pitti, Galleria Palatina, Florence, Italy. The bodies of the Virgin, Christ, and the boy Baptist fill the whole picture. The tender, natural looking embrace of the Mother and Child, and the harmonious grouping of the figures in the round, have made this one of Raphael's most popular Madonnas. The isolated chair leg is reminiscent of papal furniture, which has led to the assumption that Leo X himself commissioned the painting, circa 1890-1900. Subject: Religious painting Measures: Canvas height: 29 1/4 inches (74.3 cm) Canvas width: 29 1/4 inches (74.3 cm) Painting diameter: 28 1/4 inches (71.8 cm) Frame height: 57 7/8 inches (147 cm) Frame width: 45 1/2 inches (115.6 cm) Frame depth: 5 1/8 inches (13 cm).   Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (Italian, March 28 or April 6, 1483 - April 6, 1520), known as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. Raphael was enormously productive, running an unusually large workshop and, despite his death at 37, leaving a large body of work. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, and the largest, work of his career. The best known work is The School of Athens in the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura. After his early years in Rome much of his work was executed by his workshop from his drawings, with considerable loss of quality. He was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking. After his death, the influence of his great rival Michelangelo was more widespread until the 18th and 19th centuries, when Raphael's more serene and harmonious qualities were again regarded as the highest models. His career falls naturally into three phases and three styles, first described by Giorgio Vasari: his early years in Umbria, then a period of about four years (1504–1508) absorbing the artistic traditions of Florence, followed by his last hectic and triumphant twelve years in Rome, working for two Popes and their close associates. Raphael was born in the small but artistically significant central Italian city of Urbino in the Marche region, where his father Giovanni Santi was court painter to the Duke. The reputation of the court had been established by Federico III da Montefeltro, a highly successful condottiere who had been created Duke of Urbino by the Pope - Urbino formed part of the Papal States - and who died the year before Raphael was born. The emphasis of Federico's court was rather more literary than artistic, but Giovanni Santi was a poet of sorts as well as a painter, and had written a rhymed chronicle of the life of Federico, and both wrote the texts and produced the decor for masque-like court entertainments. His poem to Federico shows him as keen to show awareness of the most advanced North Italian painters, and Early Netherlandish artists as well. In the very small court of Urbino he was probably more integrated into the central circle of the ruling family than most court painters. Federico was succeeded by his son Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, who married Elisabetta Gonzaga, daughter of the ruler of Mantua, the most brilliant of the smaller Italian courts for both music and the visual arts. Under them, the court continued as a centre for literary culture. Growing up in the circle of this small court gave Raphael the excellent manners and social skills stressed by Vasari. Court life in Urbino at just after this period was to become set as the model of the virtues of the Italian humanist court through Baldassare Castiglione's depiction of it in his classic work The Book of the Courtier, published in 1528. Castiglione moved to Urbino in 1504, when Raphael was no longer based there but frequently visited, and they became good friends. He became close to other regular visitors to the court: Pietro Bibbiena and Pietro Bembo, both later cardinals, were already becoming well known as writers, and would be in Rome during Raphael's period there. Raphael mixed easily in the highest circles throughout his life, one of the factors that tended to give a misleading impression of effortlessness to his career. He did not receive a full humanistic education however; it is unclear how easily he read Latin. Early Life and Works His mother Màgia died in 1491 when Raphael was eight, followed on August 1, 1494 by his father, who had already remarried. Raphael was thus orphaned at eleven; his formal guardian became his only paternal uncle Bartolomeo, a priest, who subsequently engaged in litigation with his stepmother. He probably continued to live with his stepmother when not staying as an apprentice with a master. He had already shown talent, according to Vasari, who says that Raphael had been "a great help to his father". A self-portrait drawing from his teenage years shows his precocity. His father's workshop continued and, probably together with his stepmother, Raphael evidently played a part in managing it from a very early age. In Urbino, he came into contact with the works of Paolo Uccello, previously the court painter (d. 1475), and Luca Signorelli, who until 1498 was based in nearby Città di Castello. According to Vasari, his father placed him in the workshop of the Umbrian master Pietro Perugino as an apprentice "despite the tears of his mother". The evidence of an apprenticeship comes only from Vasari and another source, and has been disputed—eight was very early for an apprenticeship to begin. An alternative theory is that he received at least some training from Timoteo Viti, who acted as court painter in Urbino from 1495.Most modern historians agree that Raphael at least worked as an assistant to Perugino from around 1500; the influence of Perugino on Raphael's early work is very clear: "probably no other pupil of genius has ever absorbed so much of his master's teaching as Raphael did", according to Wölfflin. Vasari wrote that it was impossible to distinguish between their hands at this period, but many modern art historians claim to do better and detect his hand in specific areas of works by Perugino or his workshop. Apart from stylistic closeness, their techniques are very similar as well, for example having paint applied thickly, using an oil varnish medium, in shadows and darker garments, but very thinly on flesh areas. An excess of resin in the varnish often causes cracking of areas of paint in the works of both masters. The Perugino workshop was active in both Perugia and Florence, perhaps maintaining two permanent branches. Raphael is described as a "master", that is to say fully trained, in December 1500. His first documented work was the Baronci altarpiece for the church of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in Città di Castello, a town halfway between Perugia and Urbino. Evangelista da Pian di Meleto, who had worked for his father, was also named in the commission. It was commissioned in 1500 and finished in 1501; now only some cut sections and a preparatory drawing remain. In the following years he painted works for other churches there, including the Mond Crucifixion (about 1503) and the Brera Wedding of the Virgin (1504), and for Perugia, such as the Oddi Altarpiece. He very probably also visited Florence in this period. These are large works, some in fresco, where Raphael confidently marshals his compositions in the somewhat static style of Perugino. He also painted many small and exquisite cabinet paintings in these years, probably mostly for the connoisseurs in the Urbino court, like the Three Graces and St. Michael, and he began to paint Madonnas and portraits. In 1502 he went to Siena at the invitation of another pupil of Perugino, Pinturicchio, "being a friend of Raphael and knowing him to be a draughtsman of the highest quality" to help with the cartoons, and very likely the designs, for a fresco series in the Piccolomini Library in Siena Cathedral. He was evidently already much in demand even at this early stage in his career. Influence of Florence Raphael led a "nomadic" life, working in various centres in Northern Italy, but spent a good deal of time in Florence, perhaps from about 1504. Although there is traditional reference to a "Florentine period...

Three original mixed media paintings on panels by Jourcin with gilded accents, circa 1962. Signed Price is per painting.

A large French 19th century oil on canvas (laid down on a masonite) "Les progrès de l'amour dans le cœur d'une jeune fille" The Progress of Love: The Lover Crowned, after Jean-Honoré...

Framed 'Mimoides Pausanias,' 'Dione Juno,' and 'Haetera Piera' butterflies with coordinating 18th century Italian fragments. The butterflies all share beautiful color and pattern c...

Large Italian Pietre Dure Plaque of a Monk in a Wine Cellar The rectangular pietre dure plaque is composed as an interior scene set within a wine cellar and housed in a carved giltw...

These elaborate and deeply carved panels are mid-20th century. The carving is very detailed and on a rather deep heavy wooden panel. All the raised areas are richly detailed and gild...

Early Giovanni Battista Piranesi Castel Sant'Angelo Veduti Di Roma Wall Decor . Large 18th Century Etching / Engraving Of The Ruins Of Rome An Early Print Of Castle Saint Angelo By G...

Indian 19th century group of fine seven oval hand - painted miniature portraits of revered Mughal rulers and their royal wives. All individually set in narrow likely gilt Silver fram...

Framed 'Panacea Prola,' 'Perrhybris Pamela,' and 'Doxocopa Laurentia' butterflies with coordinating 18th century Italian fragments. The butterflies all share beautiful color and patt...

18th century Italian gold gilded tabernacle door adorned with naturally forming baroque pearls. This door once belonged on a tabernacle which housed the eucharist in a church. In the...

A French Directoire period framed painted panel from the late 18th century, with floral motifs. Born in France during the later years of the 18th century, this exquisite decorative p...

Faux bamboo foliage folding screen, wrought iron, gold leaf, Spain, 1960s Eye-catching gilt metal three-panel folding screen or room divider with faux bamboo ironstructure and foliag...

A late 18th Century, antique Swedish Gustavian rectangular wall mirror with its original mirrored glass and blue color paint, made of hand crafted gilded Pinewood, in good condition....

A Captivating Vision: "Clown Avec Un Oiseau" by Charles Levier. This striking oil on canvas painting, titled "Clown Avec Un Oiseau" (Clown with a Bird) in French, is a captivating...

This charming set features framed silhouettes of a young woman and young man from the 19th Century on reversed glass. Wonderful addition to add to an existing collection on a wall or...

These carved and gilt wood Chinoiserie plaques, three in total, comprise a fabulous set of vintage wall sculpture or wall decorations. Each panel features a center plaque that is dee...

20th Century Pair (2) Traditional Chinese Wall Panels/Relief Panels, Gilded Wood Carvings. These intricate carvings depict detailed scenes with figures, buildings, and landscapes. ...

Drawing by Manuel Viana, lithography in black and white, limited edition 135/300 signed Handcrafted wooden frame with white gilt decoration, non-reflecting glass Biography: The art...

A fine pair of French 18th-19th century whimsical rococo style chinoiserie oil on canvas, circle of Jean-Baptiste Pillement. (French, 1728-1808). One oil painting depicting an outdoor patio scene of a standing young mother, holding a fan, with her three young children playing with a horse-toy, a parrot and a cat, all surrounded by flowers, plants, trees, planters and flanked by a dragon fountain...

This one-of-a-kind antique Italian Empire Period folding screen is a masterpiece of early 19th-century craftsmanship, dating most likely from 1801 during the Republic of Lucca. Pain...

An antique Portuguese wall relief or sopra porte made of Pinewood, in good condition. The Baroque wall panel was hand carved and is richly ornate wi...

American sampler under glass with the original gilt Birdseye maple frame, Early 19th Century. Alphabet and Numerals. Signed by maker Maria Nuttall Age 7.

Antique Miniature Portrait of a Noblewoman - This finely rendered miniature presents a noblewoman with quiet elegance and refined presence, capturing the grace and poise associated w...

A Large and Impressive Early 20th Century Oil on Canvas "Madonna and Child" After Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (Spanish, 1618-1682) depicting a seated Virgin Mary with a baby Jesus Chri...

One of a kind gilt iron sunflower wall mirror / wall sculpture, France, 1950s. This spectacular wall mirror has an eye-catching flower shaped design with Handcrafted in gilt iron. ...

Elegant antique gilt wooden frame frieze. Perfect, it can be placed anywhere: on a mirror, on an internal door, on the frame of a particular painting. ref. nr. O/2548.

Impressive 19th century Italian hand fan, remarkably preserved with silvered metal sticks and guards depicting ancient gods, palm trees and classical emblemes. The paper leaves are h...

Painted on linen Gold highlights French contemporary work Hand-painted.  

Ancient gilded wooden frieze carved with leaves and flowers. Another example of the rich French woodwork of the 18th century. ref. O/7347.

18th century Italian gilded and hand-carved wood tabernacle door with natural forming baroque pearls and tangerine quartz crystal points. This door onc...

Unusual set of Venetian canal and landscape Scenes as capriccios in the style and manner of Guardi and as Grand Tour souvenirs . Colorful and highly decorative and of course present ...

An antique rectangular mirror inscribed in a Pinewwood frame, gilded, the pediment formed by an openwork flower basket spilling sinuous gar...

Wonderfully decorative color lithograph by Victoria (Vicky) Montesinos. It depicts an elegant lady from the Art Deco Period wearing a hat decorated with roses. The large hat covering...

A late 18th Century, antique Louis Seize period mirror in carved wood with gilded accents and foliage motifs, consisting its original mirror glass, in good condition. Created in Fran...

A Fine Italian 19th Century Oil Painting on Canvas "La Madonna della Seggiola" after Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino 1483-1520). The circular painted canvas depicting a seated Madonna holding an infant Jesus Christ next to a child Saint John the Baptist, all within a massive carved two-tone gilt wood, gilt-patinated and gesso frame, which is identical to the frame on Raphael's original artwork. This painting is a 19th Century copy of Raphael's Madonna della Seggiola painted in 1514 and currently exhibited and part of the permanent collection at the Palazzo Pitti, Galleria Palatina, Florence, Italy. The bodies of the Virgin, Christ, and the boy Baptist fill the whole picture. The tender, natural looking embrace of the Mother and Child, and the harmonious grouping of the figures in the round, have made this one of Raphael's most popular Madonnas. The isolated chair leg is reminiscent of papal furniture, which has led to the assumption that Leo X himself commissioned the painting. Circa: 1890-1900. Subject: Religious painting Painting diameter: 28 inches (71.1 cm) Frame height: 55 1/8 inches (140 cm) Frame width: 46 inches (116.8 cm) Frame depth: 5 1/8 inches (13 cm) Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (Italian, March 28 or April 6, 1483 - April 6, 1520), known as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. Raphael was enormously productive, running an unusually large workshop and, despite his death at 37, leaving a large body of work. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, and the largest, work of his career. The best known work is The School of Athens in the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura. After his early years in Rome much of his work was executed by his workshop from his drawings, with considerable loss of quality. He was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking. After his death, the influence of his great rival Michelangelo was more widespread until the 18th and 19th centuries, when Raphael's more serene and harmonious qualities were again regarded as the highest models. His career falls naturally into three phases and three styles, first described by Giorgio Vasari: his early years in Umbria, then a period of about four years (1504–1508) absorbing the artistic traditions of Florence, followed by his last hectic and triumphant twelve years in Rome, working for two Popes and their close associates. Raphael was born in the small but artistically significant central Italian city of Urbino in the Marche region, where his father Giovanni Santi was court painter to the Duke. The reputation of the court had been established by Federico III da Montefeltro, a highly successful condottiere who had been created Duke of Urbino by the Pope - Urbino formed part of the Papal States - and who died the year before Raphael was born. The emphasis of Federico's court was rather more literary than artistic, but Giovanni Santi was a poet of sorts as well as a painter, and had written a rhymed chronicle of the life of Federico, and both wrote the texts and produced the decor for masque-like court entertainments. His poem to Federico shows him as keen to show awareness of the most advanced North Italian painters, and Early Netherlandish artists as well. In the very small court of Urbino he was probably more integrated into the central circle of the ruling family than most court painters. Federico was succeeded by his son Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, who married Elisabetta Gonzaga, daughter of the ruler of Mantua, the most brilliant of the smaller Italian courts for both music and the visual arts. Under them, the court continued as a centre for literary culture. Growing up in the circle of this small court gave Raphael the excellent manners and social skills stressed by Vasari. Court life in Urbino at just after this period was to become set as the model of the virtues of the Italian humanist court through Baldassare Castiglione's depiction of it in his classic work The Book of the Courtier, published in 1528. Castiglione moved to Urbino in 1504, when Raphael was no longer based there but frequently visited, and they became good friends. He became close to other regular visitors to the court: Pietro Bibbiena and Pietro Bembo, both later cardinals, were already becoming well known as writers, and would be in Rome during Raphael's period there. Raphael mixed easily in the highest circles throughout his life, one of the factors that tended to give a misleading impression of effortlessness to his career. He did not receive a full humanistic education however; it is unclear how easily he read Latin. Early Life and Works His mother Màgia died in 1491 when Raphael was eight, followed on August 1, 1494 by his father, who had already remarried. Raphael was thus orphaned at eleven; his formal guardian became his only paternal uncle Bartolomeo, a priest, who subsequently engaged in litigation with his stepmother. He probably continued to live with his stepmother when not staying as an apprentice with a master. He had already shown talent, according to Vasari, who says that Raphael had been "a great help to his father". A self-portrait drawing from his teenage years shows his precocity. His father's workshop continued and, probably together with his stepmother, Raphael evidently played a part in managing it from a very early age. In Urbino, he came into contact with the works of Paolo Uccello, previously the court painter (d. 1475), and Luca Signorelli, who until 1498 was based in nearby Città di Castello. According to Vasari, his father placed him in the workshop of the Umbrian master Pietro Perugino as an apprentice "despite the tears of his mother". The evidence of an apprenticeship comes only from Vasari and another source, and has been disputed—eight was very early for an apprenticeship to begin. An alternative theory is that he received at least some training from Timoteo Viti, who acted as court painter in Urbino from 1495.Most modern historians agree that Raphael at least worked as an assistant to Perugino from around 1500; the influence of Perugino on Raphael's early work is very clear: "probably no other pupil of genius has ever absorbed so much of his master's teaching as Raphael did", according to Wölfflin. Vasari wrote that it was impossible to distinguish between their hands at this period, but many modern art historians claim to do better and detect his hand in specific areas of works by Perugino or his workshop. Apart from stylistic closeness, their techniques are very similar as well, for example having paint applied thickly, using an oil varnish medium, in shadows and darker garments, but very thinly on flesh areas. An excess of resin in the varnish often causes cracking of areas of paint in the works of both masters. The Perugino workshop was active in both Perugia and Florence, perhaps maintaining two permanent branches. Raphael is described as a "master", that is to say fully trained, in December 1500. His first documented work was the Baronci altarpiece for the church of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in Città di Castello, a town halfway between Perugia and Urbino. Evangelista da Pian di Meleto, who had worked for his father, was also named in the commission. It was commissioned in 1500 and finished in 1501; now only some cut sections and a preparatory drawing remain. In the following years he painted works for other churches there, including the Mond Crucifixion (about 1503) and the Brera Wedding of the Virgin (1504), and for Perugia, such as the Oddi Altarpiece. He very probably also visited Florence in this period. These are large works, some in fresco, where Raphael confidently marshals his compositions in the somewhat static style of Perugino. He also painted many small and exquisite cabinet paintings in these years, probably mostly for the connoisseurs in the Urbino court, like the Three Graces and St. Michael, and he began to paint Madonnas and portraits. In 1502 he went to Siena at the invitation of another pupil of Perugino, Pinturicchio, "being a friend of Raphael and knowing him to be a draughtsman of the highest quality" to help with the cartoons, and very likely the designs, for a fresco series in the Piccolomini Library in Siena Cathedral. He was evidently already much in demand even at this early stage in his career. Influence of Florence Raphael led a "nomadic" life, working in various centres in Northern Italy, but spent a good deal of time in Florence, perhaps from about 1504. Although there is traditional reference to a "Florentine period...

Antique parcel gilt and painted porcelain charger plate by Royal Vienna Austrian, late 19th Century Frame: Diameter 53.5, depth 3.5 Plaque: Diameter 49cm, depth 2.5cm This beautiful charger plate was crafted by the famous Royal Vienna Porcelain Manufactory. Royal Vienna was founded in 1718, making it one of the first factories to produce porcelain goods in Europe. Antique Royal Vienna items are today held in important art collections, including the Uffizi in Florence, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Frick Collection in New York. This charger is marked with the blue beehive-shaped shield of the Royal Vienna factory. The charger features a central painting, depicting the abdication of Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary was forced to renounce the Scottish throne...

Beautiful custom framed antique Swedish herbarium floral specimens, collected circa 1911. Handwritten names in lovely Latin script. Specimens include zigzag clover, milkwort, and mor...

Wonderful oval stipple engraving after James Gillray Showing the meeting of Colonel Gardiner with his daughters before the Battle of Prestonpans. Set against the background of sterl...

19th century Italian painting of Mary and Jesus on canvas with barite, selenite blades, scolecite, green aventurine, and aragonite and framed with 18th century Italian hand-carved fl...

Originally purchased from Hollyhock in West Hollywood, California. A large panel in ecru paint with carved painted and gilt high relief decoration- a gilt bow and swags at the top over a basket of fruits with a garden rake...

Wonderful Italian Empire original giltwood frame. Early 19th century. Internal measurements cm 30 x 50.5 It can be used either as small mirror or as frame either vertically or horiz...

Napoleon III style, sometimes referred to as The Second Empire style, was greatly influenced by the Neoclassical aspects of the Louis XVI period. This giltwood barometer from Paris w...

Various brands including one with a collie, one with a horse, an eagle (Turkish), cows (Turkish), birds (Egyptian Deities, and others). A large one at top for La Reclama, Havana Ciga...