Januarius Zick - Three Amoretti Playing Tric-Trac
Januarius Zick
Three Amoretti Playing Tric-Trac
Oil on canvas (relined). 72.5 x 100 cm.
Signed and dated lower centre: janu: Zick/1773.
The game of trictrac, depicted in seventeenth-century Dutch genre scenes – in taverns and brothels – as a vicious pastime, here becomes a cheerful diversion for three small putti, hovering on clouds and crouching around the gaming board. They are surrounded by an owl and several bats fluttering about – it is evidently a nocturnal pleasure they are pursuing; and evidently, entirely absorbed in the game, they have lost track of time, for the rays of the morning sun are already visible. These trictrac-playing putti belong to Januarius Zick's profane works depicting the god of love Amor or putti, and bear the influence of French art, in particular the work of François Boucher (cf. J. Straßer: Januarius Zick 1730–1797. Gemälde – Graphik – Fresken, Weißenhorn 1994, p. 469).
Provenance
German art estate.
Januarius Zick
Three Amoretti Playing Tric-Trac
Oil on canvas (relined). 72.5 x 100 cm.
Signed and dated lower centre: janu: Zick/1773.
The game of trictrac, depicted in seventeenth-century Dutch genre scenes – in taverns and brothels – as a vicious pastime, here becomes a cheerful diversion for three small putti, hovering on clouds and crouching around the gaming board. They are surrounded by an owl and several bats fluttering about – it is evidently a nocturnal pleasure they are pursuing; and evidently, entirely absorbed in the game, they have lost track of time, for the rays of the morning sun are already visible. These trictrac-playing putti belong to Januarius Zick's profane works depicting the god of love Amor or putti, and bear the influence of French art, in particular the work of François Boucher (cf. J. Straßer: Januarius Zick 1730–1797. Gemälde – Graphik – Fresken, Weißenhorn 1994, p. 469).
Provenance
German art estate.
