Pair of paintings - Antonio Ermolao Paoletti (1834 - 1912)

These beautiful oil paintings are set in Venice, with the Riva degli Schiavoni as a frame. On the right you can see the stepped bridge of the Ponte della Paglia, while in the distance the building of the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute rises into the sky. The whole scene is flooded with a soft and diffused light of the late afternoon, the atmosphere is tinged with a warm pink. The first floor of the painting is occupied by four young people, one of whom sells fruit to the other three. The fruit seller, a girl, holds a scale in her hand and measures the weight of a bundle of peaches, which two other girls are preparing to buy. The rest of the first floor is populated by staffage figures: a boy plays with pigeons; another sits on a step and sells his various goods. Paoletti's pictorial style is superb: fluid and fluid brushstrokes are used in combination with precise and delicate brushstrokes, to create a visually and materially captivating painted surface. In addition, the muted and somber color palette employed by Paoletti gives the image a sense of atmosphere. The paintings are enclosed in a carved gilded wooden frame and it is signed in the lower right corner "Antonio Paoletti fu Giov_ni / Venezia". Antonio Ermolao Paoletti was an important genre painter working in Venice in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Signed lower right Ermolao Paoletti fu Giovanni Venezia Canvas measures cm. 56 x 82