Object Description
‘Love lyrics,’ a romantic Italian genre painting by Antonio Paoletti
Italian, Late 19th Century
Panel: height 40cm, width 50cm, depth 1cm
Frame: height 59cm, width 69cm, depth 7cm
Depicting a young aristocratic couple on a romantic tryst, in a richly furnished and beautifully painted drawing room, this exceptional Italian genre painting is by the Venetian artist Antonio Ermolao Paoletti (Italian, 1834-1912).
In a marked departure from the large part of his oeuvre, which overwhelmingly consists of charming paintings of children and youngsters playing besides the canals of Venice, in this work Paoletti approaches the style of Arturo Ricci, another Italian painter of the same genre. The decidedly Rococo style, involving a lavish palatial interior and luxuriously dressed young nobles, is nevertheless superbly executed, and the masterful skills of the artist are on full show, from the gilt furnishing to the expressions of the figures in love.
Executed in oil on panel in a carved giltwood frame, signed lower left ‘A. Ermolao Paoletti.’