Gallant Scene Painting by Philippe Mercier, 18th Century

A grand view of an Italian lake, tower with the lake Garda (other name Benaco) and boats in the background. An Italian School from XVIII Century. Frame with glass. Frame: Width: ...

A 17th Century painting of Joseph with the Child Jesus on his lap, a rare Baroque motif of paternal love. Oil on wood Frame: 47x54 cm Without frame: 27x34 cm

This signed 18th Century painting showcases a beautiful scene of a loving man and woman and their loyal canine companion gathered around a charming fountain, executed in the Baroque ...

A Saint Paul of Tarsus Painting, also called Apostle Paul, Saul of Tarsus, Saint Paul the Apostle or Apostle of the Gentiles. The sword in Saint Paul's hand symbolizes the way he wa...

A Flemish School painting of the Adoration of the Child Jesus in the hands of Mary and a young Saint John the Baptist at his feet kneeling with the cross side by side with a resting ...

A biblical scene of the Adoration of the Magi of the baby Jesus, depicting the meeting between the mysterious travelers and the Family. An Italian painting of deep light contrast an...

Antique French painting from the second half of the 18th century. Oil on canvas artwork depicting a gallant party in the woods, genre scene with characters in the style of Jean-Honor...

Early 18th Century French Oil on Canvas Grisaille of Putti in a Hunting Scene. Gray-green tones, sculptural looking putti in a landscape with auct...

Antique Flemish painting from the second half of the 17th century. Oil on oak panel depicting Musicians, elegant duet with lute player and hunting scene in ...

17th century, Emilian school Rural landscape with gallant scenes Oil on canvas, 37 x 47.5 cm With frame 61 x 50.5 cm The bucolic amenity of the present is reflected in the joyful gallant scenes that dot its surface. The locus amoenus described reflects on the more traditional inflection of Arcadia, which in the literary transfiguration was the scenario par excellence of the most carefree pastoral life and out of this world; the painting is therefore a forerunner of what was professed by the actual poetic academy of Arcadia which was established in Rome in 1690, but enthusiastically testifies to the feverish invitations to its acceptance, then widespread in the most avant-garde cultural salons throughout Italy. First Theocritus and Virgil later had awakened with Idilli and Bucoliche that capacity typical of the natural world to allow an escape from reality; the contemplation of perfect natural fruits that followed would have evoked in the spirits of dreaming men back to origins. The bucolic landscape was able to positively give a rhythm to material life, and constituted the concretization of a place devoid of incivility and ugliness, where only dreams, wild music and homages to fruitful nature were allowed. In the present painting widespread figures of shepherd children trace the same intent to the sublimation of earthly life, gathered in pairs, while children on the model of the ancient cherubs cheer the field with flowers and petals. The games of these and the sweet affections of the other characters are rendered through liquid and vibrant brushstrokes, flickering with a white light that opposes the dark shadow of the undergrowth. In the distance, the sky tapers with a silvery and flat brushstroke, while the vertical development of the promoters with architectures helps to introject a bright beam of light into the grassy clearing. The foliage and the turf of the landscape piece are rendered through a digital brushstroke, betraying the Italian brand of the present, influenced at the same time by the seventeenth-century European influences that then conveyed to the capital. The evocative culture of the city attracted many artists from the city of Bologna, from the Italian north but also from the territories beyond the Alps, such as Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin. The historical-artistic heritage of the Italian pastoral scenes was thus able to fill up with the more functional and particular formalisms of the charms coming from elsewhere, such as the expressive tremor of the present, similar to the contemporary French lexicon. The typological restitution from pastoral idyll, in accordance with the intrinsic stylistic qualities of the work, allows us to specify the solid belonging of the present to the Italian hand, similarly to what was then emerging in the pictorial sphere within the Emilian school. In this regard, we should recall the latent influences of two decisive foreign landscape painters who passed through the Emilian belt, such as Claude Lorrain (1600-1682) and Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665); before them, Giovanni Battista Viola...

Venetian School painting of four angels, allegorically depicting the variable winds of change and time. Unsigned, believed to be by a follower of Pietro Li...

Attr. to Pietro Fabris (active in Naples, 1756 - 1792) Convivial scene Oil on canvas, 63 X 75 cm The canvas in question depicts a joyful banquet scene with characters dressed in traditional clothes typical of southern Italy, similar to Pietro Fabris. Much biographical information is lacking on this painter who was active in Naples between 1756 and 1792. It is assumed that he was of English origin, since he himself in many paintings is signed, next to his name, "English painter". Also appreciated in England, Fabris in 1768 exhibited in London at the Free Society and in 1772 at the Society of Artist. His vast known artistic production must therefore be included between the date of 1756, affixed to a Neapolitan scene (London, Trafalgar Galleries: see Spinosa, 1987, p. 162), and that of 1792, execution of the Pilgrimage to the sanctuary of the Madonna dell 'Arco (antiques market, formerly Matthiesen, London, published in Spinosa, 1987, fig. 410). This production includes numerous oils on canvas, gouaches and drawings, inspired by Neapolitan views and landscapes and popular scenes, festivals and costumes of southern Italy. In the initial phase, references to Carlo Bonavia and Gabriele Ricciardelli are marked, later enriched by collusions with the scenographic landscape painting of Antonio Joli...