Offered by Antichità di Alina
Agostino Tassi (Rome, 1578–1644) and workshop
Oil on canvas, 49 × 67 cm
Dimensions with frame: 68 × 86 cm
Italy, circa 1620–1630
17th-century Italian black and gilt cassetta frame
Beneath a monumental archway, soldiers wearing feathered hats are gathered around a game of trictrac. Horsemen and passers-by animate a composition dominated by architecture, whose successive planes establish a sense of depth and lead the eye through the various parts of the scene.
Palaces, porticoes and monumental buildings combine elements drawn from real architecture with others freely reimagined. This interplay between observation and invention is characteristic of Agostino Tassi, who transformed familiar architectural motifs into new perspectives, at once convincing and theatrical.
The feather-hatted figures, elongated silhouettes and small characters rendered with rapid brushstrokes belong to the painter’s characteristic repertoire. The subtle colour palette, punctuated by touches of red, also shows affinities with his production of the 1620s, a period during which his handling of paint became increasingly free and fluid.
A landscape painter and an outstanding master of architectural perspective, Tassi was active in Florence, Livorno, Genoa and Rome. In Livorno, during the early years of the 17th century, he contributed to the decoration of numerous building façades with maritime scenes and naval battles celebrating the victories of the Knights of Saint Stephen. These paintings, now lost, demonstrate his early mastery of maritime subjects and monumental compositions.
In Rome, he directed a particularly active workshop that played an important role in training the next generation of landscape and architectural painters. Among the artists who studied under him were Claude Lorrain and Viviano Codazzi, two major figures who would each develop, in different directions, their master’s explorations of landscape, perspective and architectural representation.
The painting is presented as a work by Agostino Tassi and his workshop. It has been the subject of an expert opinion by Patrizia Cavazzini, art historian and specialist in Tassi’s work, author of the artist’s monograph and curator of the exhibition Agostino Tassi (1578–1644). Un paesaggista tra immaginario e realtà, held at Palazzo Venezia in Rome in 2008.
