‘An Offering to Eros’, a Neoclassical Oil by Francesco Vinea

#18265: ‘An Offering to Eros’, a Neoclassical Oil by Francesco Vinea
Italian, dated 1899
Panel: Height 107cm, width 76cm, depth 2cm
Frame: Height 130cm, width 99cm, depth 9cm

This Florentine oil on panel by Francesco Vinea shows two young women offering roses to a marble Cupid, the pedestal inscribed with a line from Ovid.
The scene is set on a garden terrace before a curved marble bench, with umbrella pines and a distant view of hills behind. At the right, a marble statue of Cupid with golden wings stands on a carved pedestal, a bow held behind his back and a pair of arrows raised in one hand.
A dark-haired young woman leans towards him to offer a pink rose. She wears a yellow-green flowered tunic and a deep blue mantle worked with gold palmettes and a Greek key border. Behind her, a second woman with curled red-gold hair, in a white chiton and a pink mantle trimmed with gold, glances over her shoulder, a rose held loosely in one hand. A wicker basket of roses stands on the grass at their feet, with loose blooms and daisies scattered around it.
The pedestal is carved in relief with dancing figures, rams’ heads and swags of fruit, and is inscribed ‘FVGAT HOC FACIT ILLVD AMOREM’. The line comes from the first book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in the story of Apollo and Daphne, and refers to Cupid’s two arrows: one puts love to flight, the other kindles it. At the far left, the end of the bench is carved as a winged lion, and a small circular temple shows among the trees beyond.
The panel is signed, inscribed and dated lower right ‘F. Vinea / Firenze 1899’. It is presented in a carved giltwood frame with a plaque inscribed ‘An Offering to Eros / Prof. F. Vinea’. On the reverse are the label of Arthur Tooth & Sons, dealers at 175 and 176 New Bond Street, London, and that of Roberson & Co., artists’ colourmen of Long Acre.
Scenes of figures in period and classical costume, set among richly furnished interiors and gardens, form the core of Francesco Vinea’s work. Born in Forlì in 1845, he enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence but was forced by poverty to break off his studies. He worked for a photographer and as a designer for illustrated magazines before returning to study for a year under Enrico Pollastrini. He made his debut at the national exhibition held in Florence in 1861 and remained in the city for the rest of his career, in a studio filled with furniture, textiles and curiosities that reappear as props in his paintings. His work sold well in England and France, and examples are recorded in collections in Florence, Milan and New York. He later taught at the Florence Academy, hence the title ‘Prof.’ on the plaque. The Tooth label records the painting’s passage through the London trade. Vinea died in Florence in 1902, three years after completing this panel. Combining a line from Ovid with close study of marble, textiles and flowers, the painting reflects the late 19th-century taste for classical subjects treated as decorative genre rather than as history painting.
$142,500