Continental US - Decorative Art

Large French Majolica Fish Platter Fives Lille Circa 1900. 15 by 6.3 inches.

French, 18th century Verdure Aubusson tapestry handwoven in wool with silk highlights framed with a complete floral border. Two birds wade ...

Antique Chinese watercolor painting on paper, enclosed in glass and gilt wood frame, early 20th century. Measures: height 27.5 inc...

French Porcelain Puttis Platter Circa 1900. Diameter / 10.7 inches.

Vintage original Folk Art landscape features a rural scene with people in horse-driven carriages arriving to and passing by the small stores, including bookstore and antiques store, ...

Early 20th century antique French scourtins, circa 1900 to 1930s. These coarse round mats, made from the fibers of coconut shells, were historically used as a filter in Provence's olive presses. Now used as decorative floor mats or wall hangings, these antique and vintage mats...

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...

English Majolica game pie dish George Jones. Measures: Length / 10 inches on 7.5 inches, height / 6.5 inches.

A fine color lithograph by Mihail Chemiakin, signed and numbered in pencil. Professionally framed. Artist: Mihail Chemiakin, Russian (1943 - ) Title unknown Year: Circa 1980 Frame...

French Majolica plate with a geometrical pattern circa 1890.

English oil on canvas painting of horse in stable with the gilt & burl frame. Signed & Dated "J. Brown Coventry 1866"

Originally used in the kitchen of a French chateau, this late nineteenth century copper repousse tart pan features a crowned frogmouth helmet above two quartered shields. The helmet ...

Majolica sealife platter Vallauris, circa 1950. High relief of fish, starfish, seaweeds, garlic. Nautical style.  

A pair of English mounted horns appliques with silver rims from the late 19th century. Each of this pair of mounted horns features a silver rim, discreetly accented with delicate bea...

Majolica butterfly plate Josef Steidl Znaim, circa 1890.

Beautifully restored frames waiting to stare at you. Sold separately.

18th Dutch century tile painting of a cat with holding a mouse in it's mouth. Depicted right after the catch, with paw lifted showing exposed claws. The yellow and manganese striped ...

Hand-carved in oak and dating to the 1700s, this French altar plaque features a painted monogram that reads “AMSR”. The slightly raised carved initials (which stands for Ave Maria Sa...

Factory mark of De Porceleyne Bijl Factory. Each painted with scenes of peasants drinking or dancing in a village setting.

French Majolica acanthus leaves plate, circa 1880.

French Faience geometrical plate signed Henriot Quimper Circa 1930.

n the most technical sense of the word, "Suzani," in Central Asia and Iran, means needle and is used to describe this type of needlework, but to most people, such as decorators or co...

Orientalist Painting Wall Art Arab Market Scene Dutch G. Huijsser Antique Frame. Very nice oil on cardboard by Gerard Huijsser, Dutch painter, depicting a gathering of people in a or...

A large 19th century oil on canvas Bacchante group depicting two allegorical young semi-nude maidens dancing with pan, attributed to Leopold Schmutzler...

French Majolica plate Onnaing Circa 1890. flowers and blackberries.

3-400 two hand painted Folk Art ceramic panels set in a natural wood frame. Image size: 12.5 x 6" Signed Whedon.

Mid-Century Modernist painting of a Greek village. Reminiscent of Greece or Eastern Europe. Nice modernist or cubist feel. Signed illegibly C. Man.

A beautifully made Roman or Greek medieval framed wall art scene, circa mid-20th century, Europe. Scene depicts a muscular man and a centaur (half man half horse...

Majolica leaves & flowers plate Clairefontaine, circa 1890.

Vintage black porcelain decorative wall plate with 24k gold hand painted Greek warriors on horse chariot 1970's. Hand made in Greece decorative black and gold wall plate depicting Greek Mythology. Porcelain black glazed with 24k. gilt gold, backside indicates, "hand-made in Greece, and below that 24k Gold, and next to this is a Greek Key boxed...

Set of 6 French Porcelain Oyster Plate Limoges Circa 1900.

Oil on canvas depicting a French harbor scene with nearly barren trees in the foreground with branches criss-crossing across the structures, an aqueduct to the right, the reflective ...

Large Terracotta Majolica Cicada Bavent Normandy. Height / 9.5 inches.

Majolica reticulated lilac plate signed Villeroy & Boch, circa 1890.

Immerse yourself in the timeless beauty of natural history with our exquisite collection of luxury fossil art. Showcasing breathtaking natural specimens from the legendary Green Rive...

French Majolica plate Onnaing Circa 1890. flowers and blackberries.

19th century English Passiflora plate.

A fine lithograph by Mihail Chemiakin, signed and numbered in pencil Professionally framed. Artist: Mihail Chemiakin, Russian (1943 - ) Title unknown Year: Circa 1980 Framed size:...

Knute Stiles-painter, art critic and poet was born in Minnesota in 1923 and died in Tuscon, Arizona in 2009. He attended the St. Paul Art School and later...

A genuine hand cut silhouette of a woman gardening. There is foxing on the white background of the piece. This can possibly be replaced or leave it...

French Small Quimper Plate, Circa 1930

This folky original painted hand made Holsteins Milk metal farm trade sign has the original chain for hanging.It has spots that has paint loss and mino...

Vintage Rare X-Large Railroad Train Station Metal Wall Sculpture Signed by Curtis Jere

Introducing the exquisite Romain de Tirtoff Erté 1987 Loge De Theatre Framed Silk Scarf Wall Art, Signed. This stunning piece combines the elegance of ...

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Count of Buffon (1707-1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, and cosmologist. Buffon published thirty-six quarto volumes of his most well-known work, Hi...

This print of a lifesize dahlia is gorgeous! Made circa 1850, this botanical print displays the name of the flower written just below the green stem: "Royal Adelaide." The artist has...

1950s Carved Wood African Mask Chip in the back as shown

French Majolica Frog Wall Pocket Jerome Massier Fils Vallauris, circa 1900. The Massier are known for the quality of their unique enamels and paintings. The Massier family produced d...

Mid-century Chinese Silk Embroidered Tapestry of Children Playing, which symbolizes innocence and joy. Tapestry features multiple ch...

A magnificent American folk art headdress mask by P.J. Stover, signed, titled "Visions", circa 2008. Remarkably executed, the eclectic, sculptural mixed media wall hanging display is...

Early 20th century Italian oil on canvas by M Zampella, "Cows by Stream", gilded frame, signed: lower right, M. Zampella.  

19th Century English oyster plate with flowers Adderley ware.

A small ceramic decorative chinoiserie plate. Decorated in a bright blue, this plate features chrysanthemums in yellow, red, and pink among lush green leaves. A hanger has been appli...

Victorian Majolica reticulated plate signed Wedgwood.

19th Century Majolica Strawberries & Grapes Plate signed Wedgwood. Diameter / 8.7 inches.

A vintage wall relief or fragment in French Plaster features two greek warriors most likely of Cretan origin are engaged in a dance, in good condition. They are depicted naked which ...

By Hans Jacob Maurer, signed and dated J.B Maurer, 1780. Stylistically, this painting is reminiscent of the plein air and fete champetre movements of the French, 18th century court p...

German majolica aqua plate with birds swallow & insect circa 1900.