Architectural capriccio with a coastal view at sunset and figures

oil painting on canvas

60 x 91 cm.
With frame 75 x 104 cm.

The proposed canvas, a beautiful example of architectural fantasy, is a work of excellent quality by the late Baroque Flemish painter Jacob Ferdinand Saeys (Antwerp 1658–1725 Vienna) and his workshop.

The painting, of great charm and suggestion, gives us a typical example of the imaginary views of the Saeys, showing us the facade of an imposing classic building, in Italian style and with mighty marble columns, surrounded by an elegant panorama, in this case a coastal view warmed by the light of the sunset, in which boats can be seen.

Our work, probably performed towards the last decade of the seventeenth century or the early years of the eighteenth century, is conceived in a theatrical way, where the monumental palace and the view of the sea in the distance seem part of a single stage in which the figures portrayed in clothes orientalizing they seem real actors of the theater.

His skill in the use of perspective, the skilful rendering of construction materials, such as the realistic veined marbles of the columns that characterize each work, as well as the intense and dramatic use of light, are the elements that made him extremely famous, and that also characterize the present painting.

After studying architecture in Flanders, he began his pictorial activity as a pupil of the painter Wilhem Schubert von Ehrenberg; despite his election, in 1680, as Mastro della Gilda di San Luca, he decided to move to Vienna, remaining there for all his successful career. In the imperial capital, lively from an artistic and cultural point of view, he became highly regarded as a court painter, disputed by the noble aristocrats who vied to own his creations, appreciated for his extravagant inventiveness and attention to detail.

Stylistically Saeys seems to draw inspiration from the works of the Italian architectural whims painter Viviano Codazzi, himself influenced by the Flemish and Dutch painters active in Rome and known as Bamboccianti, who also painted architectural scenes with figures.

For more information, please contact us.

The work, like all our objects, is sold with a certificate of photographic authenticity in accordance with the law.

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