Scalloped Tray Decorated With Antique Figures, Tribute Scene, Italy, 19th Century

A tray with scalloped edges decorated with a lively scene of figures dressed in antique style against a backdrop of a classical landscape punctuated by idealized nature and the outline of palatial architecture. A group of seven figures in expressive poses, heirs to a rhetoric of gestures dear to 17th-century classical painting, composes a scene that we have not identified precisely but which describes a scene of tribute or usury. A richly dressed figure in a turban dominates the scene, signaling to a pair of shepherds, kneeling reverently, to address four male figures seated around a table improvised on a piece of ruin. To the far left of the scene, a man in a purple toga is meticulously drawing up a register, in which he will no doubt record the pearl necklace presented by the shepherdess, and no doubt the pair of sheep seen to the right of the image. Pawnbrokers? Moneylenders? Tribute addressed to a prince? The character in the foreground, his head turned towards the conscientious secretary, sitting on merchandise and leaning on a well-filled bag, as well as the silver coins piled up on the improvised table, seem in any case to indicate a very lucrative activity. A curious scene, depicted with a charming and popular naivety, in bright colors where reds and yellows rub shoulders with a colder chromaticism in shades of blue, for a very convincing result from a decorative point of view. There are cracks, in the upper and lower right parts; the readability of the image does not suffer, the colors are fresh, and the object remains resistant.