Pair of carved and gilded mirrors 'Sansovino style', Venice 18th century

Venetian (or Tuscan) carver active in the 18th century

Carved and gilded wood

Total frame measurements: 86 x 60 cm.
Light measures: 40 x 29 cm.

This precious pair of Venetian frames, the work of an eighteenth-century carver, are shown in all their opulence, carved in high relief with a rich decoration of intertwining volutes, festoons and fruit garlands with heads of winged angels and female masks in the upper central part.

These are two beautiful works defined as Sansovinian, or 'Sansovino-style'; characterized by an exuberance of decorative motifs taken from classical antiquity, partially overlapping, intended to create chiaroscuro contrasts of great impact.

The name derives from the famous Florentine Renaissance architect and sculptor Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570), who carried out his training in Rome, and then moved to Venice, introducing Roman classicism into the elegant Venetian architecture and harmoniously integrating the monumental style of Mannerism with the taste for meticulous ornamentation. His unique style therefore, which was taken up by our carver, represents the recovery of a certain mannerist classicism, but which somehow anticipates the typical Baroque movement.

The frames, intact in the carved part, have been perfectly cleaned and restored in our laboratory.