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Work for sale of great historical and artistic importance. Large antique painting oil on canvas MEASURES canvas cm 150 h 220 with frame cm 172 h 243 datable in the second half of the 19th century Sec. XIX certainly performed on commission important by the famous French artist Ricau Léonce (1840/1928). Ricau gained prestige and affirmation in the nineteenth century by making copies of paintings with a pictorial technical mastery that led him to have important commissions so much so that even the French state in the second half of the nineteenth century commissioned important copies of famous paintings exhibited at the museum of the Louvre to exhibit them in other French museums. Currently his copies are exhibited at the Museum of the Ursulines of Macon; Museum of Solange near Romorantin; etc. The work for sale is a valuable copy of the Holy Family of Francesco I by Raphael, now kept at the Louvre in Paris. The original work was commissioned in 1517 by Lorenzo duca d'Urbino to pay homage to the ally Francesco I of France. Ricau re-proposes the great work of Raphael with humble skill. As in the original the composition is crowded, with the Madonna grabbing the child from a basket covered with cushions in the middle, while Joseph watches from behind the scene. From the left, Saint Elisabetta helps the young Giovanni Battista to make a gesture of prayer. On the back two angelic figures one of which stretches to put a crown of flowers on Mary's head. The landscape is sketchy so as not to distract the viewer from the characters, true protagonists of the whole scene. The precise and delicate brushstroke and the perfect color rendering leave no doubt about the great pictorial ability of this artist who wanted to recall and pay tribute to the great masters of the past without ever remaining in the background but being able to earn a place of relevance in the art history of according to the nineteenth century. As with all his works, even in this Ricau, he signs the canvas at the bottom right and does not hide the origin from which he draws his work, Signing Ricau after Rapahel. In addition, the work bears the signature on the back of L. Ricau canvas. Also remarkable is the large coeval frame in gold leaf. The painting comes from an important Milanese collection.
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