Giovanni Grevenbroeck, known as Solfarolo (1650 – ?, post 1699), Fire scene with architectural ruins

Giovanni Grevenbroeck, known as Solfarolo (1650 – Milan?, post 1699)

Fire scene with architectural ruins

Oil on canvas, 74 x 59 cm

With frame 85 x 70,5 cm

The canvas in question is attributed by Dr. Fabrizio Dassie, in his latest monograph I Grevenbroeck, to Giovanni or Jan Grevenbroeck, also known as the Dutchman, progenitor of the family of painters originally from the Netherlands but who emigrated to Italy in the mid-seventeenth century. The biographical and documentary information on ours is scant: we know from some documentary data that Jan stayed in Rome in 1667 and had three sons, Orazio, Alessandro and Carlo Leopoldo. In 1970, two certain works were identified, a companion piece by Marine, now at the Musèe des Beaux-Arts, and de la Dentelle by Alencon, signed and dated “Gio. Grevenbroeck 1690”. Furthermore, the painter's stay in Milan is known, during which he became the master of the Lombard landscape painter Carlo Antonio Tavella (1668-1738). After an initial apprenticeship in his native land, Giovanni arrived in the Bel Paese, joining that vast group of Flemish artists present in Rome in the middle of the century and employed variously on the market both for minor collectors and appreciated by the great noble families, such as the Colonnas, in the whose inventories note the registration of various pictorial specimens under the name Grevenbroeck. Some documentary traces allow us to place the artist also in Milan, around 1675, a city in which he appears followed and requested by the local market; evidence of this is the presence of some canvases in the Gallery of Casa Mazenta in 1672 and in the account book of canon Flaminio Pasqualini, charged with purchasing his landscapes for Prince Antonio Teodoro Trivulzio (1674). Giovanni's mastery and predilection for painting landscapes with pyres and fires earned him the nickname "Solfarolo". Also in Milan he was counted among the founding members of the Accademia di San Luca, being registered between 1687 and 1699, to which the last trace linked to his name in the city dates back. Given the total absence of sources after that date, it could be hypothesized that the artist may have concluded his career in the Lombard capital in the first decade of the eighteenth century, coinciding with the presence in the city of his son Carlo Leopoldo, resident there until 1715. Giovanni inaugurated a peculiar landscape painting and his works, with their light touch and brightened colors of late Baroque flavour, spread that peculiar taste of the fantasy view of Northern European origin. The composition is inspired by the production trend with a visionary flavour, frequented by Nordic landscape artists, including Francois de Nomé, also the author of city fires. However, our painter does not abandon his own chromatic verve and peculiar compositional research, welcoming the thematic suggestions within the dictates of his manner, such as the bridge and the waterfall, also visible in the Coastal scene with port and figures (Pandolfini, 2015), which introduce to the catastrophic scene above which a whirlwind of pyrotechnic effects guide the observer to discover the city, the fruit of the artist's imagination. His painting, darting and material, stands out in the painting under analysis for the rendering of the little figures that at the same time flee from the fire, but also desperately try to reach the water; for the brushstrokes, which are resolved with short and skilful touches of color, as can be seen in the highly realistic rendering of the flames that leap furiously from the fire of the classically built building that is the protagonist of the composition.

The object is in good condition

With Ars Antiqua it is possible to defer all amounts up to a maximum of €7.500 at ZERO INTEREST, for a total of 15 INSTALLMENTS.

E.g. Total €4.500 = Monthly installment €300 for 15 months.

E.g. Total €3.600 = Monthly installment €720 for 5 months.

For amounts exceeding €7.500 or for a longer period of time (over 15 installments), we can provide a personalized payment.

Contact us directly to get the best quote.

LIVE

– SUNDAY 17.00pm – 21.00pm Dig. terr. 126 + 809 SKY

– THURSDAY 21.00pm – 24.00pm Dig.terr. 134 + 809 SKY

– Streaming on our website www.arsantiquasrl.com and on our social networks Facebook and Youtube

All the works proposed by Ars Antiqua are sold accompanied by a certificate of authenticity in accordance with the law and an accurate information sheet.

It is possible to see the works directly at the showroom gallery in Milan, in via Pisacane 55 and 57.

We personally organize transport and deliveries of the works, both for Italy and abroad.