Angelo Granati

BATH OF CARACALLA -In theManner of L. Alma-Tadema Figurative Oil on canvas paint

2015

18th Century European Portrait of a Child Saint John the Baptist Oil on Canvas 19 x 14 1/4 inches This lovely and sensitively painting has been examined by a professional restorer w...

Oil on canvas 50 x 40 inches; 127 x 101.6 cm Framed dimensions: 151.5 x 127 cm Inscribed on plinth: ‘VOTIS X ET XX’ Not signed Painted c.1748 Collections: Christie’s London, 23rd December 1954, lot.272; J. Singer; Somerville Simpson Ltd, London, by 1985; The Matthiesen Gallery, London; Richard Feigen, New York; Matthew Rutenberg, New York to 2019; Lowell Libson and Jonny Yarker Ltd. Literature: Stella Rudolph, La Pittura del’ 700 a Roma, Milan, 1983, reproduced pl.133; Jacob Simon, Handel, a celebration of his life and times 1685-1759, exh. cat. London, (National Portrait Gallery), 1985, no.196; Catherine Whistler, Baroque Later Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, London, 2016, pp.102-105, reproduced p.104 Exhibited: London, National Portrait Gallery, Handel, a celebration of his life and times 1685-1759, 1985-86, no.196, reproduced p.198 This powerful portrait of the antiquarian and courtier Sir Charles Frederick was completed in 1748 by the Roman painter Andrea Casali. Frederick, as comptroller of the royal laboratory, one of the ‘great officers’ of the Board of Ordinance at Woolwich, had just been responsible for the famed pyrotechnic display celebrating the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle: the so-called ‘Royal Fireworks’ for which George Frederick Handel composed music. Casali’s portrait pays tribute to Frederick’s role as comptroller of the royal laboratory, showing him with a firing diagram and mortar, it also points to Frederick’s interests as an antiquarian with the inclusion of antique relief. Casali had first met Frederick in Rome in 1738, where he had painted his portrait, Frederick subsequently encouraged Casali to travel to London. This probably accounts for the unusual format; rather than a modern man of science, Casali casts Frederick as an alchemist bent on some mystic discovery, as such, it is one of the most unusual portraits of the period. Andrea Casali was a pupil of Sebastiano Conca and then of Francesco Trevisani, who recommended him to the Spanish court in 1736. He enjoyed some success in Rome as a painter of frescoes and altarpieces, notably a large cycle of Scenes from the Life of St Dominic at the cloister of S. Sisto Vecchio, for which he was made a Knight of the Golden Spur in 1729. Casali began painting Grand Tourist portraits in Rome around 1738. His first portrait of Sir Charles Frederick is dated that year Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), it casts Frederick as a focused scholar, showing him seated at an elaborately carved console table, hard at work. In common with other Grand Tour portraiture of the period, Casali includes a famous Roman landmark in the background, in this case the façade of the Pantheon. Horace Walpole noted that it was thanks to the encouragement of ‘Mr Frederick and his Friends at Rome’ that Casali travelled to London in 1741. Charles Frederick was a fascinating Augustan polymath. Born at Fort St George, Madras, where his father, Sir Thomas Frederick, was governor, he successively matriculated at New College, Oxford (1725), was called to the Middle Temple (1728), became a Fellow of the Royal Society (1731) and Director of the Society of Antiquaries (1735). His interests were wide ranging. Frederick was an amateur architect, he designed the monument to Lucy, Lady Lyttleton, in Hagley Church and the monument to Thomas Miller, bishop of Waterford, in Highclere church, Hampshire. He was a numismatist and collector of antiquities, as well as an amateur scientist. It was in the last capacity that he was appointed comptroller of the royal laboratory at Woolwich and clerk of the deliveries in 1746, this was the most junior of the ‘great officers’ who made up the membership of the royal Board of Ordnance. This appointment came through the good offices of the master-general of the Ordnance, a fellow antiquarian, John, 2nd Duke of Montagu. As comptroller, Frederick was responsible for the fireworks celebration of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, for which Handel composed his celebrated music. As Horace Walpole wrote to his cousin, Henry Seymour Conway: ‘Charles Frederick has turned all his virtu into fireworks, and, by his influence with the Ordnance has prepared such a spectacle for the proclamation of Peace as is to surpass all its predecessors of bouncing memory. It is to open with a concert of fifteen hundred hands, and conclude with so many thousand crackers all set to music, that all the men killed in the war are to be wakened with a crash, as if it was the day of judgement, and fall a-dancing, like the troops in the Rehearsal. I wish you could see him making squibs of his papillotes, and bronzed over with a patina of gunpowder, and talking himself still hoarser on the superiority that his fireworks will have over the Roman naumachia.’ Performed in Green Park, the fireworks were mounted on a temporary structure designed by the architect Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni decorated by Adrea Soldi and Casali. Casali’s second portrait of Frederick was completed following the success of the firework display. In this remarkable image, we discover Frederick at work, dressed in almost monastic garb, pouring over an impossibly large tome propped on an antique altar. The altar is identifiable as a Roman relief depicting Victory writing on a shield, the original is at Villa Medici in Rome, but was engraved by Pietro Santi Bartoli...

Sir David Wilkie RA (18 November 1785 – 1 June 1841) “The Parish Beadle” Oil on canvas Although unsigned, this beautiful painting is undoubtedly an original work by David Wilkye as...

Portrait of a young Lady Robert Le Vrac Tournières (1667-1752) 18th century French school, circa 1725 Oil on canvas Dimensions: h. 81 cm, w. 65 cm Important 18th century Régence per...

Portrait of an Architect at His Desk, 1798 Oil on canvas, relined. Signed “C A Lorentzen 1798.” The composition depicts an architect seated at his desk, surrounded by drawings and pa...

18th century, antique painting, oil on canvas, old master. Mother with child. Relined canvas. Stretcher frame also renewed. Artist unknown.

Very decorative, 17th century, old master painting, oil on canvas, King Alexander Magnus, the great. Illustration of two children, putti, with wreaths of flowers on a board (or maus...

This charming portrait is a statement piece for any space. The two elegantly handsome sitters are brother and sister and are accompanied by their loyal dog. With 18th and 19th century British portraiture, it's the sitters' attractiveness that makes a painting desirable and drives price. There are lively brush strokes with impasto in the trees The nameplate identifies the sitters as Robert & Marianne Lawrence-Townsend - The Family of Lawrence-Townsend were originally descendants of the Lawrence Family of Wiltshire who inherited the name Townsend along with an estate, Steanbridge House near Stroud in Gloucestershire. Robert would appear to be the son born in 1797, educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, former Captain in the British Army and who became a Magistrate for Gloucester. Condition is good with some old repairs. painting beckons with vibrancy. Presents very well and is best viewed with a top key light. Private collection and perhaps Phillips Auctioneers New York 1995 per letter. Framed Size 66 x 43.5 x 4 W.R. Peddigrew, Western Cardiff, South Wales Provenance: The Estate of Mrs. Eleanor Goddard Daniels, Worcester, Massachusetts. Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, June 1981 The uploaded video on 1stDibs is coming up a bit off color. Refer to the still images for more accurate color Originally this work was attributed to Sir William Beechey...

Oil on canvas 30 x 25 ⅛ inches; 762 x 638 mm Verso: after Sir Joshua Reynolds, a self-portrait Not signed Painted c. 1758 Collections: Philip Gell (1775–1842), Hopton Hall, Derbyshire; By inheritance at Hopton Hall to his daughter, Isabella, who married William Pole Thornhill, who renounced Hopton and its contents in favour of his kinsman, Henry Chandos-Pole-Gell (1829–1902); By descent to his son, Brigadier General Harry Chandos-Pole-Gell (1872–1934), who sold Hopton Hall in 1918 and moved the family to Newnham Hall, Northamptonshire; By descent to his son, Lt Colonel John Chandos-Pole (1909–1993), Newnham Hall; Thence by descent until 2015, when acquired By descent to 2015; Lowell Libson Jonny Yarker Ltd. Literature: Algernon Graves and Walter V. Cronin, A History of the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds P.R.A., London, 1901, IV, p. 1394. David Manning...

Attributed to Pierre Paul Prud’hon (French, 1758-1823) 'La belle musicienne' Oil on canvas, oval Signed ‘P. P. Prudon’ (lower left) 28.3/4 x 23.1/2 in. (73 x 59.5 cm.) Pierre Paul Prud'hon is considered a prime example of early French Romanticism. He was born as the seventh and last child of a master tailor. At the age of 16 he was a pupil of the painter and sculptor Francois Devosge. After finishing his studies he moved to Paris, where he first worked for an engraver and became friends with the Baron of Joursanvault, who became his patron. He also made a friendship with the "incorruptible", the politician and revolutionary Maximilien de Robespierre. Despite important friendships and the care of some cardinals, Prud'hon plunges into loneliness and melancholy. He has a good reputation and produces allegorical paintings, but his attachment to Robespierre forces him to leave the French capital. He now lives in the Free County of Burgundy, where he makes portraits and illustrations for Pierre Didot, the owner of the printing house. After a few years he moved back to Paris and his career received a new impetus. In the Louvre, Prud'hon is provided with a studio in which he paints "La sagesse et la vérité descendant sur la terre" (Wisdom and Truth descend to earth) for one year, as well as some ceilings of the Louvre. The government assigns him a studio in the Sorbonne, where his wife Jeanne, whom he married at the age of 19, comes looking for him. To escape her, he asks the museum director for protection. In 1808 he wrote "La justice et la vengeance divine poursuivant le crime" (Justice and divine revenge pursue the crime). In the same year he is also named Knight of the Legion of Honour and is able to break with his grumpy wife once and for all. He soon reconnects with his student and painter of neoclassicism Constance Mayer. Pierre is commissioned to paint a portrait of the Empress and wife of Napoleon, Joséphine de Beauharnais, which can still be seen today in the Louvre. He also paints the small "Roi de Rome" (King of Rome). In 1816 the Academy of Fine Arts elected him a member, where he took over the armchair in the painting section of François-André Vincent. A few years later his depressed wife commits suicide, and full of pain Prud'hon finishes her last work "Une famille malheureuse" (Engl. An Unhappy Family) and exhibits it. He himself dies soon afterwards and is buried in Paris. Many renowned artists admire Prud'hon for his "clair-obscur", the chiaroscuro painting...