Vittorio Amedeo Rapous
(Turin 1729-1800)
Playful scene (Allegory of Summer)
circa 1786
Oil on canvas
cm 78.3 x 96.3
SOLD
In this beautiful canvas, four children appear intent on playing outdoors: the one in the center dances to the rhythm of the tambourine and to the sound of the fife and drum played respectively by the girl prettily styled, with a bouquet of flowers in her hair, and by the boy on the right (who uses his leg to move two puppets tied to a string); the one on the left plays with a puppy next to a small fountain placed in the niche of a wall. The painting, of remarkable quality, belongs to the same series as the two presented by the Giamblanco Gallery in the 2013 catalog (respectively Allegory of Spring and Allegory of Autumn, one of which is signed by Vittorio Amedeo Rapous and dated 1786) and therefore represents one of the peaks of the mature activity of the Turin painter who was active for a long time at the Savoy court. This cheerful and captivating scene still belongs to the spirit of Arcadia -typical of the eighteenth-century ancien régime- just a few years before this world definitively collapsed due to the motions of the French Revolution and everything that followed.
- Alberto Cottino
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