Carved Wood Frame

"L'arc en ciel" XVII Century

Oil painting on canvas. Northern European school of the seventeenth century. The large pastoral scene presents a broad landscape that pushes the gaze to the distant sea coast; on it the sky is gradually opening up, revealing flashes of blue on the left, while on the right, among the darker clouds left over from the storm, a large rainbow is revealed. In the foreground, a group of shepherds and shepherdesses enjoy amorous games, discrete and festive, in the midst of their herds, which rest and drink from the nearby stream. The whole scene is animated by a dimension of joyful relaxation and refreshment, as if the rainbow had restored serenity to the environment, bringing light and with it serenity to the world. The attribution to Jordaens is linked both to the typology of subject, the pastoral one, a recurring theme in the production of the Flemish artist, and to the pictorial modalities: in this work we find his warm and luminous colours, the strong contrasts of light and shadow, the robust figures with red and healthy faces, sometimes with satyristic features, the compositions full of figures that give an air of sensual vitality. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period gilded frame.

Oil on canvas. Flemish school of the seventeenth century. Already attributed to Jan Peeters (1624 -1677), the painting falls fully within the style and genre of the author who, working in his father's workshop and then in his brother Bonaventura's, specialized in marines, above all in the "Fortune di mare" i.e. the accidents due to the sea, and to any other event caused at sea by fortuitous events or insurmountable obstacles, which therefore in painting become representations of storms with ships and crews at the mercy of events. This is exactly what the painting proposed here is about: some ships, full of men, are at the mercy of the high waves of a night storm, near the coast which, with its protruding rocks, has already caused the shipwreck of some small boats. One perceives the struggle of men, small and defenseless, against the forces of nature, dominant, violent, gloomy and hostile, which dominates and attacks the boats both from the sea and from the sky, dark and black. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.