17th Century Putto with Rose Painting Oil on Canvas Emilian School

Venetian school, 18th century Study with the head of a cherub Measures: Oil on canvas, 45.5 x 41 cm - with frame 54.5 x 49.5 cm The present qualifies as a study or preparatory sketch by virtue of the structural and figural layout; by reason of formal and substantial evidence, it can be traced back to the mature neo-Venetian style, which in the eighteenth century had begun to produce figurations of extreme typological pathetism and formal expressionism. The contemporary painting experience of Tiepolo commanded the Venetian art scene, once the lesson of Pier Francesco Mola (1612-1666) was overruled. The delicate putto head offered here, in which a cherub is recognizable due to the happy iconographic solution of the wings placed under the angel's face, is outlined with a vigorous vitalism. A foreshortened point of view illuminates his face in a grazing way, probing his features with strong shadows and with a youthful blush that orange his cheeks. The veristic perfection with which the artist arranges the semblant is of marvelous expressiveness. The eyes are swollen with intensity, and together with the general setting of the head they denounce a conscious reflection on the physiognomy, peculiar within the emerging context of Venetian painting. The painting in question is affected by the large-scale productions, both monumental and perspective, at the time in vogue in the territory of the Serenissima. Conceived through a vision from below, the portrait reveals from the Venetian Rococo that particular predilection for the open and clear, airy ways, denounced in the first instance by Tiepolo. The conscious detachment from the Cortona-style decorativism and from the repeated layout solutions then in vogue allow us to approach the present to the production of Francesco Fontebasso...

17th century, Tuscan school Madonna and Child Oil on canvas, 31 x 21 cm With frame, cm 37,5 x 27,5 The pearly incarnations and the thoughtful play of looks between the Virgin, turned to the Son, and Questi, warmly open to the viewer, pour out the present painting with compositional perfection. Virginal fabrics become mottled at the folds, wrapping the Madonna in a thin vitreous mantle. The pastel colors, shining on the pink robe just tightened at the waist by a gold cord, enliven the faces of the divine couple in correspondence of the cheeks, lit by an orange warmth. Even the left hand of the Virgin, composed in perfect classical pose (Botticelli, Madonna with Child, 1467, Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon), is sprinkled with warmth thanks to the immediate touch with Christ. From the nimbus of the Mother a delicate luminous disk is effused, which takes back, in the most distant rays, the colour of the hair of the Son, from the tones of the sun. The Child Jesus is represented intent in a tender gesture of invitation with the right hand, while with the other he offers a universal blessing: with his hand he retracts the index and annular palms, extending the remaining three fingers, symbol of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The painting welcomes and re-elaborates that typically Tuscan formalism that boasted in the rest of Italy the constant appreciation by the most up-to-date artists and collectors. Arrangement, composition and mixing of colors place the canvas in the middle between the changing mannerist and the sculptural figures of Michelangelo, essential yardstick of comparison in terms of anatomical and expressionistic rendering. In the present, silvery and pinkish powders act as three-dimensional inducers to the Child’s mentioned musculature and to the vivid folds of the clothes, expertly deposited on the lunar whiteness of the skins. While these colours recall the equally brilliantly transparent colours of Pier Francesco Foschi...

This is a charming painting of a cherub with an arm extending forward, perhaps hold out a bouquet of flowers. The painting dates to the mid-18th century and is probably cut from a larger painting. The putti is well-framed in a French a gold leafed neoclassical-style. Considering the quality of this painting, and although not signed, the painting was most probably painted by a recognized Italian 18th century artist.

17th century Italian School "ECCE AGNUS DEI" oil on canvas Dec. 70 x 90 cm good condition.