Animated marine circa 1700, attributed to Antonio Maria Marini (1668-1725)

Antonio Maria Marini (1668-1725) attributed. Animated marine circa 1700.

Oil on canvas, 98 cm by 73 cm.
Old 17th century frame measuring 112 cm by 87 cm

Our painting is certainly a work produced around 1700, the influence of 17th century Flemish painting is still very present, in particular this bluish gray landscape in the last plan. In the foreground, fishermen are busy.

Antonio Maria Marini (1668-1725)

He was born in Venice in 1668, but spent his youth in Padua, where he trained as a painter. Around 1693 he was certainly in Bologna, as the Reverend Domenico Mauro Doria Montini testifies. In February 1694 he married Caterina Pirondi in Bologna and during this period he practiced his art in the same city and its surroundings. During these years he probably met Antonio Francesco Peruzzini or at least had the opportunity to see some of his paintings. Marini's works, in fact, are strongly influenced by the painting of Salvator Rosa and Peruzzini. He executed some works for Count Zambeccari, now at the National Art Gallery in Bologna, including two Stormy Seascapes and other landscapes: all these paintings denote a pre-romantic sensibility, characteristic of Rosa. Installed in Padua around 1700, he came into contact with Sebastiano Ricci, who worked at the Santa Giustina basilica. In 1702, the artist moved to Venice, where in 1707 he married his second wife Elisabetta Costadoni. The twenty paintings purchased by Lord Edward Irwin date from this early 18th century period and can still be found today in Temple Newsam House, a building annexed to the City Art Gallery, Leeds. Specializing in painting landscapes rendered in a “spectacular” manner, Antonio Marini belonged to the Venetian school. He also paints battles (Quadreria Emo Capodilista - Padua). He used a broad brushstroke technique, as evidenced in the painting “Mountains with Natural Arch and Knights” (1710-1720?), an Arcadian and imaginative landscape, preserved at the Carrara Academy in Bergamo. This way of painting is also common to other painters from the Po Valley, even very different ones, such as Alessandro Magnasco and Marco Ricci. In fact, much of his output has been wrongly attributed to Ricci and often also to Magnasco, Rosa and Guardi. In his works, depth is rendered by the superposition of planes at different distances. It is thanks to him that we can today admire the true portrait of Dante at age 32 or 33, painted by Giotto around 1298.