Landscape With Mercury And Argo '600

Painting, oil on canvas, measuring 124 x 163 cm (canvas only) and 145 x 180 cm with a wonderful contemporary frame, depicting a landscape with Mercury and Argo by the Bolognese painter Giovan Francesco Grimaldi (Bologna 1606 – Rome 1680).

This landscape, clearly influenced by Bologna, is a rare example of Giovan Francesco Grimaldi's large-format landscape art.
Few of his easel landscapes are known, as his main activity took place in Rome, mainly in mural painting in palaces and religious buildings (in San Martino ai Monti he collaborated with Gaspard Dughet).
The figures are Mercury, recognisable by his petasos (winged hat), and Argos, the guardian of the heifer.

This painting has the breadth and scope of someone who thought big and looked to the distance. The painter demonstrates a compositional balance of Bolognese and Carracci influence, the same that can be found in some of his well-known paintings, particularly the two preserved at Holkham Hall in the Earl of Leicester's collection and in the former Gasparrini collection.
In these paintings, we find the same vibrant distances, the same representation of lake openings in which the light is concentrated, and the same typification of branches stamped in halves.

In this canvas, Grimaldi has reached a very high level in reconciling and reinforcing his Bolognese education with the subsequent experiences of Claude Lorrain, Poussin, and Dughet.

The paintings and works of art published here are my exclusive property and therefore are always available to be viewed, by appointment, in my exhibition sites located in Sanremo and Brescia.

This item , like all our objects, is sold accompanied by a photographic certificate FIMA of authenticity and lawful origin; this document identifies the object by adding more value to the article.

We take care and personally organize the packaging and shipping of our items with insurance all over the world.

Mr. Riccardo Moneghini
Art Historian