Landscape with Mercury and Argo - Francesco Grimaldi 8 1606 - 1680 )

Painting, oil on canvas, measuring 124 x 163 cm (canvas only) and 145 x 180 cmwith 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'slarge-format landscape art. Few of his easel landscapes are known,as his main activity took place in Rome, mainly in mural painting inpalaces and religious buildings (in San Martino ai Monti hecollaborated with Gaspard Dughet). The figures are Mercury,recognisable by his petasos (winged hat), and Argos, the guardian ofthe heifer.

This painting has the breadth and scope of someone whothought big and looked to the distance. The painter demonstrates acompositional balance of Bolognese and Carracci influence, the samethat can be found in some of his well-known paintings, particularlythe two preserved at Holkham Hall in the Earl of Leicester'scollection and in the former Gasparrini collection.

In these paintings, we find the same vibrant distances, the samerepresentation 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 andreinforcing his Bolognese education with the subsequent experiencesof Claude Lorrain, Poussin, and Dughet.