Pair Of Tondo Miniatures, Architectural Caprices, Oil On Copper From The Restoration Period

A charming pair of small, round oil paintings on copper in very vivid colors, depicting architectural caprices in the style of the Italian landscapes so beloved by the painters of the Grand Tour: the first depicts an ancient temple in ruins with a colonnade set amid dense vegetation, brought to life by a small figure at the foot of the ruins; the second depicts a collapsed fortified tower on the banks of a river, with a three-arched stone bridge in the background and two figures going about their business on the riverbank, beneath a tree.Each miniature is outlined with a beaded gold border and set in a turned, blackened wooden frame with broad moldings. Fun fact: the backs of the frames are lined with printed pages from an old edition of *La Mort de César*, a tragedy by Voltaire (Act III, Scene 1)—a common practice at the time, which involved recycling pages from books to reinforce the backs of the frames.
Dimensions: 7.8 cm in diameter (painted subject) / 14 x 14 cm (frame)