A large, newly-discovered and unpublished early work by the influential Antwerp painter, draftsman and etcher Frans Floris de Vriendt (called Floris, 1519/20-1570), more renowned in his day than Bruegel the Elder, will be unveiled at TEFAF Maastricht 2019 by Carlo Orsi-Trinity Fine Art. This important painting depicting Susanna and the Elders will form the centrepiece of the gallery’s stand. The work was completed shortly after Floris’s return from a long visit to Italy, and it testifies to his interest in combining the lessons of his Italian travels with a traditionally Netherlandish approach to oil paint.

Floris was praised for his treatment of the nude, and in this substantial canvas, which shows the beautiful Susanna undressed and about to bathe, the artist displays a sensitivity to the handling of flesh which was exceptional in Netherlandish art at the time. Art historian Edward H. Wouk, who has written the most recent definitive work on Floris, says of the present painting: “Such sensuous images appealed to Floris’s early collectors who valued the distinctive mix of Italian form and Netherlandish technique in his work. Their patronage propelled Floris to fame as an international celebrity praised for his treatment of the body.” The work carries an asking price in the region of 700,000 euros. A catalogue is available.

A previously unknown work by Bernardino Luini (1482-1532) depicting Three Angels on Clouds is a major highlight. Part of an altarpiece, the oil on panel recently resurfaced on the art market; it dates to 1515-1518 and is strongly inspired by da Vinci’s apostles in The Last Supper. The work will be published in a forthcoming monograph on the artist. Luini was a leading figure in the Lombard Renaissance and one of Leonardo da Vinci’s most important disciples. Numerous later versions of this imaginative study of putti have been made by other artists, which attest to the enormous success of Luini’s original composition. The work is offered with an asking price in the region of 500,000 euros.

A new form of art composition to develop in the 17th century was the still life. Two fine examples by early masters of this genre, Panfilo Nuvolone (Cremona 1581-Milan c1651) and Fede Galizia (Milan or Trento 1578-Milan 1630), daughter of the painter of miniatures Nunzio Galizia, will be exhibited side by side as a significant feature on the stand. This presentation will interest scholars, given the numerous shared characteristics in the artists’ work, which has caused a continual review of attribution, as well as copious studies about their stylistic relationship and their roles in the artistic development of the still life – a genre that would come to be favoured by women artists like Galizia (two thirds of whose recorded output is the still life). Each of the present oils on panel reworks the revolutionary concept created by Caravaggio (with his Basket of Fruit) whereby the subject is removed from the everyday tablescape and placed in isolation onto a bare, black background, thus assuming a metaphysical quality. The Galizia is priced in the region of one million euros, and the Nuvolone in the region of 400,000 euros.

Two works associated with famous Italian landmarks – the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence and the Ponte Sant’Angelo, Rome – should not be missed at Carlo Orsi-Trinity Fine Art. An enigmatic Portrait of a Lady (possibly Caterina Soderini Ginori) circa 1575 by Jacopo Coppi, called Jacopo del Meglio (Florence 1546-1591), is painted on a panel which would have formed a section of a boiserie, a decorative design typical of the interiors of Florentine nobility. Coppi was among the artists working for Francesco I de’ Medici for his studiolo, one of the most evocative rooms in the Palazzo Vecchio and which represented one of the peaks of Florentine mannerism. Alongside the panel portrait is a glorious terracotta Head of an Angel by Antonio Giorgetti (documented in Rome from 1657-1669), one of the great sculptors of the Roman Baroque. It is taken from his Angel with the Sponge commissioned for Ponte Sant’Angelo (1668-69), a project overseen by Bernini for Pope Clement IX. This sculpture is not a preparatory model but an object in its own right, made for the collectors’ market: during the latter years of the 17th century, there was a marked increase in the desire to collect terracottas, especially those by Algardi, from which the present head takes inspiration. Asking price for the Coppi is in the region of 120,000 euros, and the Giorgetti in the region of 300,000 euros.

Carlo Orsi-Trinity Fine Art can be found on Stand 379 at TEFAF, which runs at the MECC Maastricht, from 16 to 24 March 2019 (preview days 14-15 March).