18th century French Old Master Portrait of a woman - Female Oriental Queen

Circa 1740s

17th century Flemish old master painting, Allegory of taste The very fine painting depicts a young boy, cheekily tasting a delicious pie. He's looking at the viewer with eyes twinkl...

Late 17th, early 18th century old master oil painting depicting an allegory of Lady Justice holding demons at bay Our painting, likely a sketch for a much larger work,, conveys a pr...

Very fine old master Portrait painting of Queen Catherine of Braganza as Saint Catherine attributed to Jacob Huysmans and studio Catherine of Braganza...

17th century old master painting "Silenus feasting", likely studio of Sir Anthony Van Dyck Born in Antwerp in 1599, Anthony Van Dyck entered the studio of Rubens (1577 - 1640) at the age of nineteen. Quickly, the master perceives the talents of the young prodigy and makes him his first assistant. Van Dyck, for his part, has a particular admiration for the man whose name is known throughout Europe. In 1619, he was inspired by a drunken Silenus by Rubens, produced one or two years earlier for a composition on the eponymous theme. This work, now in the Dresden Museum, appears to be the first version of our painting. That work has an illustrious provenance; it was recorded in the private collection of Leopold Wilhelm (Archduke of Austria) in 1662, in 1722 it was bought by the famous German painter Antoine Pesne for the King of Saxony in Dresden (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden - Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, inventory number 1017). From 1945 until 1955 it was on display at the Pushkin Museum in Moskou, after having been taken by Russia after the Second World War. It was then returned to the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden where it is still on display. Our painting is of a fine quality and has been painted by a skilled and confident hand. It displays some slight variations in the composition when compared to the original; the legs of Silenus are smoother and less hairy, more humanoid than satyresque. There might also be a pentimento visible at the level of the legs where one observes traces of hair on and under the material. This area can be compared to that of a canvas by Van Dyck kept in Brussels, of a still drunk Silenus whose animal legs are formally treated in the same way as the ones in our composition. Furthermore, the skirt of the figure to the far left has a purplish-red colour in our work, whereas in the first version it appears to be white. There also appear to be differences in the sky, firstly the clouds are shaped slightly different, the sky in our painting has a more vivid colour and there is also a golden hue of a sunset visible to the far left. This treatment of the background appears close to that of a Saint Rosalie, now kept at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and dated 1625, which might offer a reference for dating our painting. In the evanescent aspect, as non finito of its figures, it is interesting to compare our Silenus to a Saint Sebastian, conserved in the Escorial Museum in Madrid. Also, the theme remains rather curious. According to Barnes and Porter, Rubens, like Van Dyck after him, was partly inspired by Book XI of Ovid's Metamorphoses, but a second literary or pictorial source remains unknown (1). For the original composition, Stephan Maaser, art historian, establishes a correspondence between the position of Silenus, referring to that of a Christ at the moment of the Lamentation or the Descent from the Cross (2); the female characters on the left and the male on the right refer more to Mary Magdalene and Saint John than to the Phrygians or the members of a bacchanalian procession. Finally, note that Silenus is not usually a faun. The success of the composition at the time of its public reception and its engraving by Franciscus van der Steen really contributed to the dissemination of the work. At the same time, it testifies to the intense activity of the painter and his studio in Antwerp, before he left to work at the English court. About Silenus: In greek mythology, Silenus was the tutor and foster-father of the wine god Dionysos, who was entrusted to his care by Hermes after his birth from the thigh of Zeus. The young god was raised by Silenus and nursed by the Nysiad nymphs in a cave on Mount Nysa. Silenus was, in essence, the spirit of the treading dance of the wine-press, his name being derived from the words seiô, "to move to and fro," and lênos, "the wine-trough." Once, when Dionysos was travelling through Phrygia, Seilenos became lost and was captured by King Midas. The king treated him hospitably and as a reward Dionysos granted him his golden touch. The artists biography: Born in Antwerp on 22 March 1599, Anthony van Dyck was the seventh child of Frans van Dyck, a wealthy silk merchant, and Maria Cuypers, who was renowned for her embroidery skills. In 1609, when he was ten years old, his parents apprenticed the precocious youth to Hendrik van Balen (1575-1632), a painter of small cabinet pictures and dean of the city's Saint Luke's Guild. Although the length of Van Dyck's stay with Van Balen is not known, it probably lasted three to four years. Van Dyck registered as a master in the Antwerp Saint Luke's Guild on 11 February 1618, by which time he was already in demand as a portrait painter (see the NGA painting, Portrait of a Flemish Lady...

18th century French Rococo portrait of a young noble lady This cheerful young lady is looking at the spectator with a sparkling eyes has a cheeky smile on her face, almost as if she has just heard a funny story. She is very elegantly dressed, wearing a blue dress with embroidered silk sleeves. The bodice is adorned with a cream silk band which has been beautifully tied to a ribbon at the top, a tulle-lining completes the dress. Her hair is styled in an elaborate 18th century style and tied together with a blue and cream silk hairband. This portrait has been wonderfully painted, the artist not only beautifully depicted the fabrics, but also marvellously captured the happy nature of the sitter. The painting really has a soul, when one looks at it, it feels as if one is looking at a real person. It is very close to the works of Joseph-Siffred Duplessis (1725-1802) and it shares an uncanny resemblance to the portrait that he painted of the Comtesse de Provence, Princess of Savoie and wife of the King Louis XVIII of France. Duplessis is known to have reused many of his favoured compositions in different portraits, but he always applied slight differences, such as in the present painting. We believe that the present painting was created by someone from his very close circle. Joseph-Siffred Duplessis (1725-1802) was a renowned French portrait painter, famed for his intimately rendered portraits. After training for many years in Paris, Duplessis presented himself to the Académie in 1769 and was afforded the opportunity to exhibit regularly at the Salon. He was very successful and in 1777, he was allowed to paint a full-length portrait of Louis XVI (1754–1793) in his state robes. Two years later he created a portrait of Benjamin Franklin in a red coat with a fur collar, a painting which was the subject of much favorable comment. It was destined to become the artist’s most famous work and perhaps the best known image of the great American patriot...

"Portrait of Emperor Rudolph of Austria (1557-1619)" circle or studio of Josef Heinz the Elder Emperor Rudolph II, born in 1552, was a visionary ruler whose reign as the Holy Roman ...

Procaccini was born in Bologna, but his family moved to Milan when the artist was eleven years old. His artistic education was evidently familial— from his father Ercole and his elder brothers Camillo and Carlo Antonio, all painters—but his career began as a sculptor, and at an early age: his first known commission, a sculpted saint for the Duomo of Milan, came when he was only seventeen years old. Procaccini’s earliest documented painting, the Pietà for the Church of Santa Maria presso San Celso in Milan, was completed by 1604. By this time the artist had made the trip to Parma recorded by his biographers, where he studied Correggio, Mazzola Bedoli, and especially Parmigianino; reflections of their work are apparent throughout Procaccini's career. As Dr. Hugh Brigstocke has recently indicated, the present oil sketch is preparatory for the figure of the angel seen between the heads of the Virgin and St. Charles Borrommeo in Procaccini's altarpiece in the Church of Santa Afra in Brescia (ill. in Il Seicento Lombardo; Catalogo dei dipinti e delle sculture, exh. cat. Milan 1973, no. 98, pl. 113). As such it is the only known oil sketch of Procaccini's that can be directly connected with an extant altarpiece. The finished canvas, The Virgin and Child with Saints Charles Borrommeo and Latino with Angels, remains in the church for which it was painted; it is one of the most significant works of Procaccini's maturity and is generally dated after the artist's trip to Genoa in 1618. The Head of an Angel is an immediate study, no doubt taken from life, but one stylistically suffused with strong echoes of Correggio and Leonardo. Luigi Lanzi, writing of the completed altarpiece in 1796, specifically commented on Procaccini's indebtedness to Correggio (as well as the expressions of the angels) here: “Di Giulio Cesare...

Painting Ships in a well-protected tube from Nigeria This work is unique, this is not a print or other type of copy. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity (Issued by the Gallery)

Giuseppe Assereto (Genova - 1626 ca – Genova 1656/57) Portrait of an elderly woman, possible portrait of Maddalena Massone, wife of Gioacchino Assereto Oil on canvas, cm. 65,5 x 51,5...

Giovan Battista Beinaschi (Fossano, 1636 - Naples 1688) Saint Bartholomew Oil on canvas, cm. 96 x 71,5 – with frame cm. 108 x 86 Shaped and gilded ...

Juan Alfonso Abril (active in the 17th century in Valladolid) Head of Saint Paul Oil on canvas, cm. 48,5 x 62 - with frame cm. 63 x 76,5 Shaped wooden f...

Antonio Mercurio Amorosi (Comunanza 1660 - 1738) Portrait of a little girl with cat Oil on canvas, cm. 42 x 31.5 – with frame cm. 56 x 44 Shaped, carved and gilded wooden cassetta fr...