USA - Decorative Art

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...

Peter Robert Keil was born to an artist blacksmith father whom he lost very early in his childhood during the Second World War. During the end phase of the war, Keil's mother, also a...

Large Majolica turtle fountain signed Sarreguemines, circa 1890. Form 913. At the end of 19th century it's not unusual to find in the rich houses thi...

This signed etching of Bowling Green Park was done by Anton Schutz. It is dated 1927. It depicts a bustling scene in the Financial District of Lower Manh...

By using intensely saturated colors and scaling up the proportions—each panel measures 12 feet high—a demure lotus motif adapted from a 17th-century Japanese woodblock transforms int...

English ironstone platter circa 1890. Chinoiserie or Imari style, decorated with flowers.

A long, rectangular vintage French wall mount Hellenistic relief molded in plaster from the Athenian Agora depicting the senate and ancient Greek warriors, in good condition. Not rec...

Majolica sealife platter Vallauris, circa 1950. High relief of 2 fishs, seaweeds, garlic. Nautical style. 8.5 inches diameter  

19th Century French Majolica apples fives Lille. Measure: 10.5 inches diameter.

Elegant blue and white oyster plate signed Bordeaux Vieillard, circa 1890. Six wells surrounded by blue seaweeds of different kinds.

A vintage Mid-Century ivory color silk brocade collectable Japanese ceremonial kimono. One of a kind hand crafted. Fabulous museum quality ceremonial piece in pure silk with intricat...

Dutch (possibly 18th century) faience earthenware square mulberry tile with Biblical scene.        

French Majolica oyster plate signed Saint Clement, circa 1920.

Lovely custom framed 19th century botanical fern engravings from Prof. Dr. Otto Wilhelm Thome's "Flora von Deutschland", published in 1886. Thomé (1840–1925) was a famous German bota...

Framed 'Panacea Prola,' 'Perrhybris Pamela,' and 'Doxocopa Laurentia' butterflies with coordinating 18th century Italian fragments. The butterflies all share beautiful color and patt...

French Faience Blue & White Bird Plate Moustiers Style Moustiers style Martres Tolosane, circa 1900.  

Wall Sculpture #765 by Karen Gayle Tinney Six panel wall sculpture. Hand formed ceramic pieces in unglazed beige stoneware with white, tan, and gray cotton fringe. Hanging wires are...

A charming later Victorian textured canvas applied to wood, study of Thomas Gainsborough's three-quarter portrait of the Welsh actress Sarah Siddons, presented in a period Ebonized c...

A Korean four-panel folding screen circa 1830s, from the late Joseon Dynasty. The painting depicts a vivid hunting scene on four vertical scroll panels mounted with brocade borders. The four panels are related to each other in narrative but not in an absolutely continuous fashion, therefore they could be viewed individually and independently, which was not uncommon in the screen paintings as they are meant to be folded and unfolded as needed. The pictures show a general on the far left panel seated on a low platform bed...

This stunning 19th-century French decorative fan is a testament to exquisite craftsmanship and artistic elegance. The fan leaf is meticulously hand-painted on vellum or silk, featuri...

Late 10th Century Chinese Silk Embroidery ( 6'2'' x 9'8''- 188 x 295 )

American Modern Abstract Wall Sculpture Copper Brass Metal, Curtis Jere

French Majolica white daisy plate Orchies, circa 1890.

A fine and large 19th century oil on canvas after Bartolomé Esteban Murrillo's (Spanish, 1617-1682) "Beggar Boys Playing Dice" (The original work by Murillo was painted in 1675). The impressive artwork depicts two young boys playing dice while another eats a piece of fruit as his dog watches on., within an ornate gildwood and gesso frame bearing a label from the faming company Bigelow & Jordan. The original work by Murillo is currently at the Alte Pinakothek Museum in Munich, Germany. The present work is signed: L. Rüber. Circa: Munich, Late 19th Century. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (born late December 1617, baptized January 1, 1618 – April 3, 1682) was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children. These lively, realist portraits of flower girls, street urchins, and beggars constitute an extensive and appealing record of the everyday life of his times. Murillo was born to Gaspar Esteban and María Pérez Murillo. He may have been born in Seville or in Pilas, a smaller Andalusian town. It is clear that he was baptized in Seville in 1618, the youngest son in a family of fourteen. His father was a barber and surgeon. His parents died when Murillo was still very young, and the artist was largely brought up by his aunt and uncle. Murillo began his art studies under Juan del Castillo in Seville. There he became familiar with Flemish painting and the "Treatise on Sacred Images" of Molanus (Ian van der Meulen or Molano). The great commercial importance of Seville at the time ensured that he was subject to influences from other regions. His first works were influenced by Zurbarán, Jusepe de Ribera and Alonzo Cano, and he shared their strongly realist approach. As his painting developed, his more important works evolved towards the polished style that suited the bourgeois and aristocratic tastes of the time, demonstrated especially in his Roman Catholic religious works. In 1642, at the age of 26, he moved to Madrid, where he most likely became familiar with the work of Velázquez, and would have seen the work of Venetian and Flemish masters in the royal collections; the rich colors and softly modeled forms of his subsequent work suggest these influences. In 1645 he returned to Seville and married Beatriz Cabrera y Villalobos, with whom he eventually had eleven children. In that year, he painted eleven canvases for the convent of St. Francisco el Grande in Seville. These works depicting the miracles of Franciscan saints vary between the Zurbaránesque tenebrism of the Ecstasy of St Francis and a softly luminous style (as in Death of St Clare...

Add a touch of classic elegance to your space with this vintage framed needlepoint tapestry inspired by The Gleaners, a famous 19th-century painting by Jean-François Millet. This han...

Green Majolica leaves plate, circa 1890.

19th-century English Green Majolica strawberry & grapes platter.

Majolica strawberry plate signed Wedgwood. Diameter / 8.8 inches. Chips on the back , one hairline.

Probably Nez Perce [Plateau] with fully beaded front with flowers and leaves. In a wood frame box with glass cover. From the estate of Bartlett Burnap.

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...

Vintage 1980's Ozzy Osbourne announcement: Original mockup advertisement obtained from & signed by the ad's designer Fernando Natalici (working with Ron Delsner at the time). This ra...

French Figurative Oil Painting by Charles Levier. Titled "Une femme devant la mer", this masterful work of a well-known listed French artist whose work can be compared to Bernard Buf...

Huge 17th C. Regal Flemish baroque Historical tapestry Royal court Antique LA CA . The period followed Renaissance and preceded Rococo and Neoclassical styles. The movement exuberant...

An antique 19th century Indonesian carved wooden panel from a temple entrance, with scrolling foliage. Only one of the panels in the photo is no...

19th Century Majolica Oranges Platter Perret Gentil Menton. Diameter / 9 inches.

This very unusual silhouette of a young Victorian woman has incredible detail right down to the folds of the skirt of her dress and mutton sleeves- you can almost feel the velvet fa...

A gorgeous antique 19th-Century English majolica oyster plate, circa 1870-1890. This fine quality oyster plate has six wells with lovely soft shades of turquoise, blue, and lilac. It...

Modern "Daybreak" artwork printed under glass, features a serene scene with a reclining woman and a standing girl set against rolling hills, a tranquil body of water, and classical a...

1950’s Union Jack Flag Framed, London England This vintage British flag was purchased in London many years ago. This red, white and blue Union ...

Beautiful continuous black line drawing of a woman by Jean Negulesco. Vintage color serigraph print with blind stamp in corner. New custom maple frame with UV plexi.

French faience oyster plate signed Henriot Quimper, circa 1930.

Majolica gooseberry plate signed Sarreguemines Majolica, circa 1870. Geometric pattern on the border.

Peter Robert Keil was born to an artist blacksmith father whom he lost very early in his childhood during the Second World War. During the end phase of the war, Keil's mother, also an artistically talented woman, took her son and struggled her way to West Berlin...

Decorative pair of French Pastoral painted panels on wood stretchers.

Striking 3D Bauhaus inspired art by Dutch visual artist Lejo den Hertog (1945, Delft). Consisting of diagonally placed geometric shapes and bold primary colors this work from 1969 (p...

Insika (Screen or Wall Panel) Rwanda-Burundi, Tutsi people Circa 1900 or earlier Natural fibers and dyes H 23 ins (58.5 cm) W 16 ins (40.5 cm) Depth 3 1/2 ins (9 cm) This superb ...

French Majolica flowers plate Orchies Circa 1900.

Persian shekastesh nastaliq calligraphy panel. Calligraphy panel with gold and blue borders, handwritten in Farsi with intricate Khatam inlay frame consisting of wood and bone work....

Italian Renaissance style Set of three gilt icon wall plaque with swirl columns and religious figures.

Colorful and rare majolica oyster plate Choisy Le roi unsigned, circa 1890. The six wells are blue between grey shells and the centre is pink.

French Majolica bird with grapes plate signed Sarreguemines, circa 1880.

Beautiful custom framed antique herbarium floral specimens, collected circa 1890. Handwritten names in lovely Swedish script. Specimens include cat's foot, wild oat, and others. Pres...

Based on a rare 18th-century document and created by one of Europe's premier engravers, this design comes in coordinating panels of fabric and wallpaper with a 12-foot repeat. Pane...

This original 1950s Coca-Cola sign has the perfect faded red look that gives it tons of character. With its worn-in, industrial vibe, this piece is an incredible find for any vintage...

An ethereal water garden of lily pads, lotuses, and wispy vines materialize from layers of translucent paint in artist Colette Cosentino’s otherworld...

Vintage Ceramic Jeziorna Polish Pottery Plate Bolesławiec 1960s Poland. Vintage handcrafted ceramic pottery decorative wall plate. Gorgeous carved and hand-painted pottery plate with...

Rare 19th Century Pink Majolica Oyster Fish Heads Plate Wedgwood.

French Majolica cicada wall pocket from Provence. Height / 5.5 inches.

Original oil on canvas, tonal-style landscape painting by listed, deceased, famous artist, William Keith (1838-1911). Painting features a group of majestic trees near a pond of water...

Fantastic and rare Charles II mid-17th century stumpwork wool and silk picture. Illustrating stories from The Book of Esther, including the Ki...