Baroque Portrait of a gentleman 18th century Italian master by Domenico Parodi

e.g. 1730-1740

Attributed to Pietro Antonio Rotari (1707 - 1762), Italian painter of the Rococo era. His portraits, mostly of women, are renowned for being beautiful and realistic. The details and ...

Unsigned but attributed to acknowledged master Francois-Xavier Fabre (François-Xavier Fabre, 1766 – 1837), French painter of historical subjects. Stylish and perfect portrait of beau...

This accomplished portrait captures a distinguished young gentleman at the twilight of the Napoleonic era. His penetrating gaze and confident bearing betray not only his aristocratic...

As we gaze upon at this artwork, our eyes are immediately drawn to the foreground where a comical spectacle unfolds before us. A carriage, stubbornly stuck in the midst of a ford, se...

Giovanni Maria DELLE PIANE, known as IL MULINARETTO (Genoa, 1660 – Monticelli d'Ongina, 1745) Portrait of a man Oil on oval canvas H. 108 cm; L. 83 cm Provenance: Nino Ferrari Colle...

Giovanni Bernardo Carbone (Genoa 1614 – Genoa 1683) - Portrait of a gentleman. 200 x 142 cm without frame, 212 x 154 cm with frame. Antique oil painting on canvas, in wooden frame ...

Provenance : Arnold S. Kirkeby (1901-1962) Donated by Arnold S. Kirkeby to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1955, where it remained until its sale at Sotheby's, New York on January 10, 1991, lot 82. Christie's, London, July 7, 2010, lot 186, where it was purchased after the sale by the executors of the will of the late Edmund de Rothschild (1916-2009) for display at Exbury House The Trustees of Exbury House Literature : R. Brown, Bulletin of the Art Division, Los Angeles County Museum, VIII, 1957, pp.8-9, no. 4; S. Schaefer and P. Husco, European Paintings and Sculpture in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, 1987), p. 53 (illustrated and dated c. 1735) This sumptuous ceremonial portrait, executed around 1725-1730, depicts Monsieur Aubert, the French General Comptroller of Bridges and Roadways, as we learn from a letter on the desk beside our model. The virtuoso treatment of the fabrics, the authoritative yet confident pose, the vigorous treatment of the two hands, are representative of Largillière's talent, here at the peak of his art as portraitist. The portrait also has a rather extraordinary provenance: donated by Arnold S. Kirkeby, an American hotel magnate and real estate developer, it was exhibited during almost forty years in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum, before being acquired in 2010 by the executors of Edmund de Rothschild's will to adorn his former home Exbury House (Hampshire), where it remained until its sale in 2022. 1. Nicolas de Largillière, a great European portraitist Nicolas de Largillière (or Largillierre), one of Europe's premier painters of portraits, history paintings, and still lifes during the late seventeenth century and the first four decades of the eighteenth, was born in Paris in 1656. He was the son of a hatmaker and merchant who moved with his family to Antwerp in 1659. As a boy of nine, he traveled for the first time to London in the company of an associate of his father. After returning to Antwerp more than a year later, his artistic gifts were recognized and his father apprenticed him to Antoni Goubau (1616-1698), a painter genre scenes and landscapes. Something of a prodigy, he was admitted to the painters' Guild of Saint Luke when he was only seventeen. In 1675 he made a second trip to London, where he was employed at Windsor Castle and worked as a restorer under the direction of Italian painter and decorator Antonio Verrio (c. 1639-1707), who brought him to the attention of King Charles II (r. 1660-1685). At this time Largillière painted several still life paintings in the manner of the Dutch and Flemish masters. Thereafter he practiced this branch of painting with consummate skill, a talent that allowed him to make brilliant use of flowers, fruit, and animals in some of his most ambitious portraits and contemporary history pictures. In 1679 Largillière settled in Paris, where he specialized in baroque portraiture in the grand manner of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), and Peter Lely (1618-1680). The Flemish battle painter Adam Frans van der Meulen (1631 or 1632-1690) introduced him to Charles Le Brun (1619-1690) who, as First Painter to King Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715) and director of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, was the predominant figure in France's official art establishment. Upon his acceptance as a candidate for admission to the Académie, he agreed to execute as his diploma picture a large portrait of Le Brun (completed 1686, Paris, Musée du Louvre, eight photo in the gallery) seated in his studio surrounded by the accoutrements of his art and an oil study for the ceiling of Galerie des Glaces at Versailles. In 1686, Largillière made a final trip to England, where he painted portraits of the newly crowned king, James II (r. 1685-1688) (Greenwich, National Maritime Museum) and his consort Mary of Modena...

Maria Giovanna Battista Clementi known as La Clementina (Turin, 1692 - Turin, 1761), Attributable to Portrait of Victor Amadeus II of Savoy (Turin 1666 - Moncalieri 1732) king of Sardinia, duke of Savoy, marquis of Saluzzo and duke of Monferrato, prince of Piedmont and count of Aosta, Moriana and Nizza from 1675 to 1720. Oil on oval canvas, 79 x 62 cm., Framed 98 x 82 cm. The portrayed in this fascinating virile portrait is King Vittorio Amedeo II of Savoy, portrayed in ceremonial armor and red cloak according to the traditional courtly iconography, represented half-length, slightly three-quarter-length, with the towering "courtly" wig, according to the dictates of fashion of the first decades of the century, of French inspiration. In order to represent the power embodied in our austere portrayal, the sovereign is immortalized with the symbolic attributes of the power of the family, identifiable in the ancient crown of the Kingdom of Sardinia, in the scepter with the Mauritian cross and in the necklace of the Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunziata, established in 1364 by Amedeo VI, as the highest honor of the House of Savoy...