Oil on canvas painting, measuring 124 x 163 cm (canvas only) and 145 x 180 cm with a wonderful contemporary frame, depicting a landscape with Mercury and Argus by the Bolognese painter Giovan Francesco Grimaldi (Bologna 1606 – Rome 1680).
This landscape, with a clear Bolognese imprint, is a rare large-format example of Giovan Francesco Grimaldi's landscape art.
Few easel landscapes by him are known, as his main activity took place in Rome, primarily in mural painting in palaces and religious buildings (he collaborated with Gaspard Dughet in San Martino ai Monti).
The figures are Mercury, recognizable by his petasus (winged helmet), and Argus, the guardian of the heifer.
This painting has the breadth and grandeur of someone who conceived on a large scale and ranged into distant views. The painter demonstrates a compositional balance of Bolognese and Carraccesque origin, the same that is found in some of his known paintings, particularly the two preserved at Holkham Hall in the collection of the Earl of Leicester and in the former Gasparrini collection.
In these paintings, we find the same vibrant distances, the same representation of lake openings where light concentrates, and the same typification of foliage stippled with halftones.
In this canvas, Grimaldi has reached a very high level in reconciling and strengthening his Bolognese education with subsequent experiences with Claude Lorrain, Poussin, and Dughet.
The paintings and works of art published here are my exclusive property and are therefore always available for in-person viewing, by appointment, at my exhibition spaces located in Sanremo and Brescia.
As with all our items, the work is sold with a FIMA photographic certificate of authenticity and legitimate provenance; this document identifies the item and adds value to it.
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Dr. Riccardo Moneghini
Art Historian
