{"title":"Empire Treasury Collection","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"antique-italian-oil-painting-woman-baby-church-1880","title":"Antique Italian Oil Painting Woman and Baby in Church, Circa 1880","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eShe stands on the church steps with the baby gathered against her shoulder, eyes lowered, in the full traditional dress of the Roman Campagna: the white folded headcloth, laced bodice over a red-sleeved chemise, dark skirt, and red stockings. She is a ciociara, the young woman in the costume of the countryside south of Rome, one of the most sought-after subjects in 19th-century Roman painting. A mother carrying a swaddled infant onto church steps carries an old resonance, the presentation and blessing of a child, echoing the Madonna and Child in the guise of everyday peasant life. Behind her a Cosmatesque altar glows with inlaid marble and a heraldic shield, twisted columns rise on either side, and a brass votive lamp hangs on its chain overhead. A Latin inscription is painted into the stone at lower right, in the martyrological language of the Roman church. This is an unusually ambitious example of the type, large in scale and worked fully from the architecture down to the shadow crossing the marble floor, with a Brussels framer's label on the reverse.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Artist | Italian School, unidentified\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Signature | None. The Latin lapidary lettering on the stone at lower right is painted decoration within the depicted church interior, not a signature. It is written in the manner of a Roman church memorial inscription and carries the phrase \"in Sabinis,\" referring to the Sabine hills northeast of Rome, a region long associated with early Christian saints.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Medium | Oil on canvas\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Subject | A ciociara, a young woman in traditional Roman Campagna dress, holding an infant on the steps of a church interior, before a Cosmatesque altar with a hanging votive lamp\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Origin | Italian School\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Age | Circa 1880, late 19th century\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Canvas Size | 14 in. W x 26.5 in. H\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Frame Size | 19 in. W x 31 in. H\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Format | Vertical, full-length single figure\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Frame | Period giltwood with egg-and-dart and beaded ornament, appears original to the work\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]School or Movement | Italian academic genre painting. Through the 1860s to 1890s, painters trained in the Roman academies produced highly finished scenes of regional peasant life for foreign visitors and the export trade. The favourite subject was the ciociara, the woman in the traditional costume of the countryside south of Rome, often placed in a recognisably Roman architectural setting. This example uses a Cosmatesque interior, the inlaid marble decoration developed by Roman marble workers in the 12th and 13th centuries and found in the city's medieval churches, as its backdrop. The type combined rigorous academic figure training with the picturesque appeal of Italian costume and devotional life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Support | Canvas, lined\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Provenance | Bearing the label of Encadrements C. Artiges \u0026amp; Fils, 10 Rue Gray, Brussels, on the reverse, documenting framing or restoration in Belgium\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[condition]\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe painting presents well overall, with a warm, readable surface and strong presence at scale. Fine craquelure is visible across the surface, consistent with age, most apparent in the lighter passages of the headcloth and the pale draped cloth the woman carries. The canvas is lined, which has stabilized it against further age-related movement. The face, hands, and costume retain good detail and modeling.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eI have not cleaned or tested the surface, and I am not making a claim about varnish state or earlier retouch either way. What I can say from close examination is what is described here. The gilt frame is a period profile with the expected minor rubbing and small losses to the high points of the ornament, more visible at the corners, in keeping with age and honest wear.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003ePlease review all photographs closely, as they form part of this description.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Austyn Marie Design","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51482654900502,"sku":"AMD-03445","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0896\/4623\/5926\/files\/Belgium_France_Inventory_Continued-9534.jpg?v=1785429750"},{"product_id":"antique-english-mahogany-barley-twist-games-table-1860","title":"Antique English Mahogany Barley Twist Games Table","description":"\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThis is a fold-over games table in well-figured mahogany, the kind of piece that sits against a wall as a console and opens out when you want a surface for cards. The top swivels and unfolds to a playing round, hinged at the back rail. The legs are the character here: deep open-spiral barley twist down all four, ending in little turned feet, which gives a fairly serious piece a bit of movement.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe flame figure across the top and frieze is the other thing worth standing in front of. It catches the light and shifts as you move around it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Dimensions | 29 in H x 35 in W x 34 in D (open)\u003cbr\u003e[d]Surface | Later finish, French polished, method not established\u003cbr\u003e[d]Primary Wood | Mahogany\u003cbr\u003e[d]Period | Antique\u003cbr\u003e[d]Date | Circa 1860\u003cbr\u003e[d]Origin | United Kingdom\u003cbr\u003e[d]Style | Victorian\u003cbr\u003e[d]Also Known As | fold-over card table, games table\u003cbr\u003e[d]Maker\/Attribution | none; no maker's mark present\u003cbr\u003e[d]Construction | Solid carcass with mahogany veneer, pegged mortise and tenon rails, swivel-and-fold hinged top\u003cbr\u003e[d]Secondary Wood | Oak and pine\u003cbr\u003e[d]Playing Surface | Painted and ebonized round, hinged at rear rail\u003cbr\u003e[d]Hardware | Brass top hinges\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[condition]\u003cbr\u003eStructurally sound and standing square. The mahogany top and frieze retain good flame figure with a French-polished surface showing scattered scratches, small losses, and old wear throughout, consistent with age and use. There is veneer lifting and chipping along the front top edge (see photos). The interior playing surface is a painted and ebonized round, not baize or leather; it is worn and scuffed with a visible split running across it and paint losses along the hinge line. The swivel-and-fold mechanism operates. The secondary wood of the carcass and rails shows genuine oxidation, shrinkage gaps, and old surface grazing; no evidence of active infestation. Brass top hinges present and functional. Later finish, method not established. Dimensions approximate. Sold as-is; photos govern condition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e#38\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Austyn Marie Design","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51482656833814,"sku":"AMD-03476","price":1200.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0896\/4623\/5926\/files\/23656941-C339-46EB-A7FD-713ABA467DDC_1_201_a.jpg?v=1785258864"},{"product_id":"antique-italian-mother-and-child-oil-painting-unframed-1900","title":"Antique Italian Mother and Child Oil Painting, Unframed","description":"\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003eA single figure in deep rose, bent over her infant, sits at the edge of a dirt path while the rest of the picture opens away from her into grey weather and a distant peak. The painter put all the drama in the sky and all the warmth in one small place, and the composition works because of that imbalance. It belongs to the Italianate genre tradition that northern European painters carried home out of Rome and went on painting for the rest of the century. The hand here is unidentified, and I would rather say so than guess.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Artist | Unidentified. Italian School\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Origin | Italy\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Signature | Bearing an indistinct signature in the lower right. Not legible and not attributed\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Medium | Oil on canvas\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Subject | Mother and child seated in a southern landscape\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Age | Late 19th or early 20th century, assessed circa 1900\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Size | 16 inches W x 20 inches H\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Format | Vertical, sold unframed\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Frame | None\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Style | Italianate Romantic genre\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Support | Canvas reverse exposed and visible, tacking edges intact on all four sides, re-stretched at some later point onto a plain softwood strainer\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Dating Evidence | Original iron tack holes with rust staining through the fibers along all four tacking margins, and an oval supplier stamp on the canvas reverse\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Provenance | No labels, gallery stickers, or auction tags. An oval stamp of the colourman type on the reverse, lettering present but not legible, and a blue chalk stock number\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[condition]\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003eSold unframed, and the surface is the thing to understand before buying. A greyish purple veil sits over the whole upper two thirds of the picture, above and around the paint rather than in it, and it reads to me as discolored varnish. At the upper left corner there is an abrupt patch of clean blue sky and cream cloud that does not blend into the surrounding grey and has a harder edge than the painter would have given it. My reading is a cleaning test window, where somebody took the varnish down in one small area and stopped. I cannot prove that from looking, and I am telling you what I see rather than what I know. What it means practically is that the picture under that veil is probably brighter and cooler than the picture in these photographs, and a conservator could tell you what it would take to bring it forward. I have not had that done and I am not selling it as done.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003eNo craquelure network is legible to me across the paint film, in the sky or in the thicker foliage passages. Whether fine cracking is present under the varnish and simply masked by it, I cannot say. Scattered small pale flecks sit across the sky and foreground, reading as surface accretion rather than paint loss. There is a dull bloom over parts of the sky.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe canvas itself is sound. No tears, no punctures, no patches. The tacking margins carry heavy uneven oxidation, brown and grey banding along the fold lines and greenish staining in patches, along with the rusted round holes from the original stretching. Along the top turnover there is fiber loss and loose threads, heaviest at the upper left corner, and a few fibers stand proud along the right edge. The extreme bottom edge shows abrasion and small paint loss where the canvas has been knocked at some point. All of this sits at the outer margins rather than in the picture.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe strainer is a plain light softwood, mitered at the corners, with no keys and no slots for keys. It is a later replacement, secured with staples that sit alongside and independent of the earlier tack holes. Hanging hardware is two modern D rings and braided wire, and is not original to anything.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e#47\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Austyn Marie Design","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51482657128726,"sku":"AMD-03485","price":1150.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0896\/4623\/5926\/files\/Belgium_FranceInventoryContinued-7783.jpg?v=1784999233"},{"product_id":"antique-belgian-doorway-interior-oil-painting-1908","title":"Antique Belgian Oil Painting Doorway Interior Scene, Signed, Circa 1908","description":"\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe scene pulls you straight through it. A staircase and turned newel post hold the shadowed foreground while a green door stands open on a sunlit courtyard, one small red figure at the far end, and daylight rakes down across the plaster and the leaded casement at right. François Bulens signed and dated this in the lower right in 1908. He was a Brussels decorative painter and miniaturist working the Belgian naturalist interior tradition, the same lineage of luminous through-the-doorway views that runs back through Henri De Braekeleer to the Dutch masters. The picture is built on that one device, the eye carried from dark interior to bright yard in a single move.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]\u003cstrong\u003eAttributed to Artist\u003c\/strong\u003e | François Bulens (Belgian, 1857 to 1940)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Signature | Signed and dated lower right, F. Bulens 1908\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Medium | Oil on canvas\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Subject | Interior with open doorway onto a sunlit courtyard\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Origin | Belgian\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Age | Antique, painted 1908\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Canvas Size | 18.5 in. W x 22 in. H\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Frame Size | 25.5 in. W x 29 in. H\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Format | Vertical\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Frame | Antique gilt gesso and wood, ribbon and wave carved outer molding with beaded courses, losses to the gesso\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Style | Belgian School, naturalist interior in the manner of the Dutch doorkijkje tradition\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[d]Support | Commercially prepared canvas, standard Continental format 10, stencilled on the reverse, keyed stretcher with single crossbar\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e[condition]\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe canvas is stable on a keyed stretcher and appears unlined based on examination of the reverse, though I have not confirmed that under magnification. The paint film reads as intact across the composition with the fine surface texture and low impasto you would expect of a well handled oil of this date. The signature and date in the lower right are legible and sit within the paint film. Surface would benefit from a light professional clean; I am describing it as it presents, unrestored to my eye, without claiming more than I can stand behind in hand.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe frame carries the losses. The gilt gesso is missing in sections at the corners and along the bottom rail, with the wood substrate exposed, and there are drying cracks through the ribbon and wave molding throughout. It is an old frame with real presence and it holds the picture well, but it shows its age plainly and I would call it a decorative period frame with honest wear rather than a restored one. The hanging wire and hardware are recent additions we fitted because the originals were failing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003e#50\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Austyn Marie Design","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51482657259798,"sku":"AMD-03489","price":1485.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0896\/4623\/5926\/files\/Belgium_FranceInventoryContinued-9562.jpg?v=1785259437"}],"url":"https:\/\/austyn-marie.myshopify.com\/collections\/empire-treasury-collection.oembed","provider":"Austyn Marie Design","version":"1.0","type":"link"}