Trompe l'Oeil Dummy Board

A "dummy board" painted in grisaille by the Paris artist Pierre Le-Tan that represents an ancient bust, obelisk, photo and calling card. It is signed and d...

This neoclassical trompe l'oeil painting is an allegory of summer. It would have been hung with allegories of the other three seasons over the doors of a salon. Ceres, Roman goddess...

This trompe l'oeil drawing depicts the artist's tools -- a black and a red crayon, and a folding steel ruler that was painted with silver pigments, which have blackened with age. They're shown on a sheaf of papers that include a medieval manuscript page, a musical score, and a group of prints. The unifying theme is the artistic patronage of the Medici, the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, who intermarried with the Habsburgs, who were the Holy Roman Emperors. Among the papers are prints by Stefano Della Bella, the Florentine artist who worked for the Medici. They depict a negro page with a horse, and portraits of Lorenzo Lippi...

This Mughal miniature was painted at one of the princely courts of India. It depicts a raven-haired princess in a gold-trimmed saffron-colored silk sari. Under a glowering evening sky she dawdles on a white marble terrace, with a pet fawn on a leash, before a landscape dotted with buildings nestled amongst trees beyond a river. Her hair, falling loosely about her shoulders, rather than carefully dressed on her head, indicates that she is a maiden. The overall mood is one of expectancy. Perhaps walking a pet and catching an evening breeze is a pretext to escape palace scrutiny for a lovers’ assignation. In Mughal India tender sentiments were a bridge to the erotic – and if this seems contradictory, so too is the balance of realism and caricature, and naturalism with the schematic. Both are hallmarks of miniatures painted in this place and time. The earliest Mughal Indian miniatures date to the 16th century. They were inspired by those painted at the refined Moslem courts of the neighboring Persian empire. They incorporated figures in spite of the Moslem faith’s proscription against depicting the human form. Such was the nature of sophisticated courtly life everywhere that beauty and pleasure trumped systems of morality. This was no less the case at the provincial Indian courts, where our miniature, marked by a charming pictorial naiveté, was most likely painted. Yet the artist was undeniably accomplished. His command of perspective, introduced by Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century, is seen in the landscape, which rolls back to a distant horizon, contrary to the flat two-dimensional ones following Indian-painting traditions. And if Mughal artists were influenced by Western art, the compliment was returned by Rembrandt and Sir Joshua Reynolds, among others, who collected Indian miniatures (as did, perhaps, Giovanni Bellini who painted in Mughal style the famous miniature of a Persian man...

Great grandson of the famous writer Victor Hugo, the painter Jean Hugo (1894-1984) was in the thick of the Paris art scene between the wars. A member of the avant garde, he was a friend of Picasso, Cocteau and Colette and was associated with the Neo Romantics. His small gouaches on paper were avidly collected by Dr. Albert Barnes, and can be seen today in the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia. Hugo's most desirable work -- landscapes, interior scenes, set designs -- date from the mid 1920s to the late 1930s. This whimsical painting, signed and dated 1927, is set in a curtained, classical interior furnished with Victorian lighting fixtures...

A ram lowers its horns in a face off with a barking dog that rises on its haunches. An ox turns its head to watch the row. An annoyed ewe glances over its shoulder, but the two behin...

A gorgeous vintage porcelain trompe l'Oeil onion plate Portugal, Late 20th Century Measures: 10"W x 2.25"D x 10"H. Good original vintage condition.

Trompe L'oeil game painting on board. Birds, guns and a bugle. Italian artist and dated 1910.

Immerse yourself in the enchanting world of Italian Trompe-l'œil with this exquisite pair of paintings by the renowned artist Piero Antonelli, executed in 1961. Each canvas unfolds a...

This stylish and chic trompe l'oeil painting on canvas dates to 1955 and was created by the artist Charles Cerny. Note: Frame dimensions: 15.75" height x 13.69" width and 1.25" depth. Note: Image dimensions: 10.75" height x 8.50" width Note: There is a slight dent to the upper left corner of the frame (see last photo). FYI: Charles Cerný (1892-1965), sometimes called Walter Cerny, was a Czech landscape...

Pairr of Trompe L'Oeil still life paintings on wood-framed.

Vintage (20th Century) trompe l'oeil still life featuring all facets of correspondence – hand-written notes and letters, wax-sealed envelopes, and a feather quill – held to a woo...