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Antique Oil Portrait of Sig. Contessa Maria
Ref: 2032
A dramatic primitive school oil on canvas portrait from the 19th century of an Italian noble lady.
In her hand she holds a slip of paper which tells us who she is an unmarried noble lady from the Northern Italian city of Cesena, she is the "Sig Contess Maria Franchini Agusello". As Contessa she is noble and being Signorina she is a Miss. There is a date too, 18-, unfortunately the two later digits are losses.
The letter in hand sometimes an unfolded letter casually revealed is a trope or commonplace device of Italian portrait painting going back to the Renaissance, a play on the ambiguities of portraiture, the sense of an individual being both revealed and concealed, both document and cipher.
She has soft deep eyes and she is altogether quite a pleasing figure. She wears a pearl necklace and a quite showy ring on her little finger not to mention the "pearly queen" hat and extravagant ruff or collar. She comes tidily packaged in a green dress with velvet black belt and strapping.
As in other good naives indeed in portraiture in general from Fayum to the present day there is neat combination here of the mysterious and the direct. Pictorially the work gets straight to the point, the Contessa is boldly set forth in plain terms in a simple balanced composition of form and harmonious slightly quirky greens and creams against against a stark black ground. But this is also the record of a real historical person portrayed in a moment of time, quite intriguing and with an enigmatic Leonardo smile unfolding across her lips.
Northern Italy 19th cent.
H: 73cm (28.7in)
W: 62.5cm (24.6in)
D: 2cm (0.8in)
SOLD
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