Vittorio Reggianini

Richard Green, London (in 1976)
Private collection, United Kingdom (in 1977)

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting is in beautiful condition. The canvas is unlined and the paint layer is clean and varnished. There are no visible retouches. The painting should be hung as is.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Specializing in elegant scenes of bourgeois life, figure compositions and child studies, as well as more humble interiors with peasants, Reggianini's artistic forte rests in his ability to combine fantasy and sensuality in theatrical works such as the present lot. Like his Florentine contemporaries, the bourgeoisie enjoying the arts was a popular, and profitable, subject for Reggianini and, given the impressive scale, attention to detail, and narrative interest, this is among his most accomplished compositions.

In this lively interior, the figures embody a romanticized notion of leisure and luxury, opulently rendered by this master painter. Dressed in a stunning pale pink empire-line satin gown, whose train falls in luxuriant swathes to the floor, the female figure observes her painted fan, coquettishly avoiding the intense gaze of the man seated next to her and wearing an equally elaborate satin costume. The dog which stands before them directs the viewer's attention to the second group of three women who sit enthralled before a large painting upon an easel, hidden from view by the marble column. To their right rests an artist's palette and brushes, suggesting that the painting has either been recently completed and that the artist and subject are the young couple enrapt, or that these three women are sitting for a portrait themselves. The unfolding progress of the picture is punctuated on the left, right and in the centre by fallen petals and flowers, perhaps alluding to the transience of love and the fleeting pleasures of flirtation.