Hand-Carved Decorative Art

Top quality, hand carved and truly impressive antique clock with 8 music melodies. Over the years we have had the pleasure of owning and selling a number of beautiful Black Forest antiques, but never did we come accross a 19th century Black Forest clock with musical box of this size and with such amazing natural details and patina AND with the original clock and music box inside. And if that was not enough, this finest of Black Forest clocks is top quality carved from top to bottom in the form of a detailed Swiss chalet. Mind you, this very rare antique clock is entirely hand carved out of nutwood only, which is another sign of the quality of the workmanship and the richness of materials. We have added a large variety of photos so that you can see the many incredibly detailed parts of this Swiss chalet, such as the roof and chimney, the many doors, the stacked lumber outside, the doghouse, the outhouse on the side, the striking balconies, the goose sticking its head out through the balcony, the picked fence, the ladder going up to the barn loft, the clock inside the facade of the house, the music box cilinder in the base etc etc. This antique clock from the 1800s really comes with the most realistically carved chalet house you will ever see. To us, that too is a sign that this Black Forest music box...

Italian hand-hammered silver Madonna and child from Sicily, detailed with gold and light red-wine hues, perfectly coordinating with the original Sicilian wood frame. The inner frame ...

The Hamsa hand or hand of Fatima is known across many cultures to protect its wearer and ward off bad energy. It is also a symbol of patience and claire voyance. The Artist often use...

Stunning design and top quality executed antique barometer. This late 19th-early 20th century, English manufactured wall barometer has everything that makes an antique worthwhile. F...

Unique and large Victorian rifle rack with width open box at the bottom. This highly decorative and good condition gun rack for wall mounting could look great above your fireplace, but also in a private library, home office or trophy room etc. The beautifully patinated, light nutwood combined with the four strong and all handcrafted brass weapon holders make this victorian antique hunting piece an impressive sight to see. If you are not into hunting, but you simply love the great look of this finest quality rack then you could also use this stylish antique for various other purposes. You could, for example, also have rare swords...

A red-yellow, antique French still life oil on canvas painting depicting a working table with a dark-blue vase with flowers, painted by Eugène Henri Cauchois in a hand carved, origin...

This rare and decorative early 20th-century Arts & Crafts wall barometer and thermometer is a striking testament to Dutch craftsmanship. Hand-carved from a single solid piece of rich...

Last 4 of an original set of 16 wall fixtures. Set of four really large and great looking, half-moon shape, easy to mount and beautifully handcrafted alabaster wall lights. In all ...

A round, antique French large dimensional clock face with its original metal clock made of hand crafted painted Wood from the Napoleon III period. In good condition, enhanced by deta...

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 light-brown, vintage Mid-Century Modern Italian wall mirror with its original mirror glass, enhanced by brass nailheads, designed by Paolo Buffa in good condition. The backside of ...

Wall Panel / Headboard in Walnut, Spain, 1940s This architectural wall panel features beautifully handcarved foliage details thorough. To be used as wall decoration or headboard. Te...

A beautiful, vintage alabaster handmade plate, framed with glass and gilt wood. Measuring 11.75" wide, 1.63" deep and 10" high. Displayed in a period giltwood frame. Image size, 4 1/...

Exceptionally hand-crafted picture frame with station of the cross lithograph by Eugene Jouy 'Editeur'. This handcrafted antique frame is in a style that we have never seen before a...

Mid-Century Modern Medieval Inspired Bas Relief Wall Decoration in Polychromed Carved Wood. Spain, 1950s. Beautifully hand-carved bas relief depicting genre scene. Two standing men f...

An antique Italian frieze panel with flowers, vines and leaves, made of hand crafted Oakwood in good condition. The vertical door features two hand crafted round metal door pulls...

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 Ma...

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 gilt wood 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. A retailer's label reads " Fred K/ Keer's Sons - Framers and Fine Art Dealers - 917 Broad St. Newark, N.J." - Another label from the gilder reads "Carlo Bartolini - Doratore e Verniciatori - Via Maggio 1924 - Firenze". Circa: 1890-1900. Subject: Religious painting Canvas diameter: 28 inches (71.1 cm) Frame height: 54 inches (137.2 cm) Frame width: 42 1/2 inches (108 cm) Frame depth: 5 1/2 inches (14 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...

A late 18th Century, antique Swedish Gustavian wall mirror made of hand crafted Pinewood with its original mirrored glass, in good condit...

A very fine Italian 17th century oval oil on canvas "Head of Christ Crowned with Thorns" Circle of Pierre Mignard (French, 1612-1695) within...

Attributed to Giorgio Lucchesi (1855-1941) A large and impressive early 20th century oil on canvas "Madonna and Child" after Bartolomé Esteban Murillo...

Large handcrafted decorative Indian Mughal Moorish brass tray. Embossed and hammered with floral and mystique animal scenes with Arabic script etched. Large decorative hanging...

The Songye Shield is a striking example of African tribal art from the Congo, dating back to the mid-20th century. This shield, traditionally used by the Songye people for protection...

Eugène Galien-Laloue (1854-1941) "Theatre du Chatelet" watercolor and gouache on paper signed 'E Galien Laloue' lower left, within a giltwood and gesso c...

Decorative Fine Carved Wood Wall Panel Measures 45" in width, 20" in height

Hans Zatzka (Austrian, 1859-1945) a very fine and charming oil on canvas "Spring Beauties", depicting three young maidens picking flowers by a lake. The three young girls sitting, kneeling and laying on a grassy area of the forest, her wicker basket filled with the freshly picked flowers, the middle one wearing a bonnet and a straw-hat laying on the ground behind with butterflies flying by, within a gilt-wood and gesso carved frame. Signed (l/r): H. Zatzka. Circa: 1890-1900's, Hans Zatzka (Austrian, 1859-1945) was a well known and regarded Austrian fantasy artist whose most popular and valuable works depicted figures of young maidens with angels, floral and other cheerful and warm scenes, including Orientalist themes. In the past thirty years alone, the high quality and detail of his beautiful paintings has caught the attention of International collectors and art dealers alike, creating a highly sought after market and demand for his instantly recognizable body of work. In the late 19th and early 20th century, many of Zazka's charming works were photographed for commercial and collectable postcards. Though no information about his works being exhibited in museums is currently available, most of Zatzka's paintings are in private collections and, in the past century, very few of them have become available on the open market. At the young age of eighteen Zatzka joined Austria's Academy of Fine Arts under the leadership of Professor Blaas. For his fine early works, in 1880 he received The Golden Fügermedal award. Zatzka, like many other artists of the era, traveled around Europe working and selling his art and, in one of his many trips to Italy, he developed a special interest in Religious themes, decorating churches with frescos as well as painting several religious scenes of Madonna's and Child, Saints, Angels and others. In 1885 Zatzka was commissioned to paint "The Naiad of Baden" a ceiling fresco at Kurhaus Baden. Most of Zatzka's income came from his work in religious art and special church commissions. Numerous leading art dealers from around the world that specialize in late 19th and early 20th century European genre paintings have come to the conclusion that the painter signing his works Bernard Zatzka, Joseph Bernard or J. Bernard is almost certainly the artist Hans Zatzka. The consensus seems quite plausible when comparing works known to have been executed by Hans Zatzka together with similar works displaying the signature; Joseph Bernard, J. Bernard or Bernard Zatzka. Lohengrin refers to the knight of the swan, hero of German versions of a legend widely known in variant forms from the European Middle Ages onward. It seems to bear some relation to the northern European folktale of “The Seven Swans,” but its actual origin is uncertain. It is also a character in German Arthurian literature. The son of Parzival (Percival), he is a knight of the Holy Grail sent in a boat pulled by swans...

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...

Top museum quality carved Swiss barometer / weather station This antique barometer is not only about the actuality of the weather, it is also a true work of art and a real pleasure to look at. The attention to detail is incredible and it must have taken a true craftsman weeks rather than days to design and finish the carved frame alone. At a later stage, the handcrafted barometer (in German) and the thermometer (in Celsius & Fahrenheit) were integrated. Notice how the Edelweiss Flowers...

A 19th century Italian reliquary with silver thread double-headed eagle and foliage and floral motif on a red silk background.  Inscriptions with sev...

An exquisite and rare large scale circa 1840 zoological silkwork embroidery picture of native Indian reptiles and amphibians feeding on butterflies in native flora and fungi, depicti...

Pair of 1700s Italian Wall Decorative Panels, a pair of blue laquer vertical frieze dating back to late 18th century, with a stunning  hand-carved gilded relief  candelabra decoratio...

A large decorative and rare hand carved tribal war shield in traditional colors, made in Papua New Guinea in the late 19th century. Functional as beautiful ...

A French Louis XVI period painted and hand carved wooden boiseries panel from the late 18th century, with monogram, swag and fruit motifs. Born in France during the second half of the 18th century, this exquisite painted boiseries features a central monogram set inside an oval medallion, accented with a swag adorned with delicate fruits in its extremities. Ribbon-tied at the top, the carved panel charms us with its perfectly harmonious décor and soft color, framed with rais-de cœur motifs. Hung anywhere in a room, perhaps above a chest-of-drawers, side table or credenza, this Louis XVI 18th century painted...

A set of hand carved white marble panels in a floral Jali with geometric flowers and design. This handcrafted architectural panel can be used as a table top, light diffuser, open air...

Stunning and completely original, antique oak grandfather or lantern clock, circa 1750. This very old grandfather clock is one of the tallest w...

An extraordinary 19th-century Tibetan monastery door panel, dating to circa 1890, originally used as a chamber door for monks. This unique piece is a vibrant expression of Himalayan ...

A gold-brown, antique Asian oversized wall mount decorative Buddha head in a very large scale. Handcrafted in tropical wood and gilded, in good condition. Minor fading, scratches due...

A large Italian ceiling panel made of hand crafted Walnut, enhanced with caryatid and acanthus scrolls, in good condition. The antique wall relief, décor represents the Rococo time period...

Handmade Mid-Century Modern ceramic wall platter by Margit Lagerqvist for Swedish Tilgmans in 1957. Hand painted floral decor in white, yellow, orange, rose, light blue and green col...

Danish modernist decorative plate / wall decoration / centerpiece with strong graphic decor from the Tribal Harlekin series by ceramic artist Marianne Starck (1931-2007). Shiny bone white glaze with hand-carved sgraffito graphic lines and patterns in raw anthracite colored clay...

Italian 17th century still life painting in period carved gilt frame Italian school still life painting from the workshop of a great master. The 17th century Baroque painting in oil...

19th C. bas-relief panel which is a type of sculpture where the design in only slightly raised from the background surface, creating a shallow, low-relief effect. The relief depicts...

A fine unique wooden sculptural wall decoration. Hand Carved motifs, made by a Danish Cabinetmaker in the 1970s. Nice texture and dimensions in this vintage piece, it can be used as ...

Elegant Louis XVI style barometer by Bénard à Provins in gilded and green lacquered wood, carved, decorated with knotted ribbons, foliage and garlands. French work signed Bénard à P...

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

Oversize and spectacular 19th century Black Forest carved wood trophy wall plaque with a large fish. Beautiful carved border with acanthus leaves. Measur...

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...

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