Setdart auctions presents an amazing set of pieces that cover an extensive time frame that began during the Romanesque period and that lasted until the arrival of the 18th century. . Through them, we can travel through some of the most exciting periods in the history of art, following its plastic, aesthetic and thematic evolution throughout the centuries.

Among more than 90 pieces in bidding, this “San Esteban” of Catalan School of the second half of 15th century stands out, in which we can already detect an important advance with respect to the international Gothic style thanks to an incipient naturalism and detail. continues to maintain its leading role, a more naturalistic representation of the volumes begins to be sought, and attention is paid to details and qualities that respond to a direct flamenco influence.

Entering the Renaissance period, we evidence the artistic wealth that emerged then, as a result of the intense cultural exchanges between Italy, Flanders and Spain. In this way, we will see how the Flemish attention to detail, and the textile and expressive qualities, will be combined with the properly Italian interest in the reproduction of the line perspective.

Already in the middle of baroque period, typically counter-reformist religious images coexisted with interest in the genre of portraiture, which was essential for the development of all painting of the period. Both aspects are magnificently represented at auction, on the one hand, through this highly scenographic image of the Immaculate Conception made by Antonio Palomino and on the other, thanks to the moving realism of the portrait “Vecchio mendicante” by GiacomoCeruti.

To this time also belongs “Salomé and Herodías con la cabeza del Bautista” by Gerard Seghers, in a period where his style, after his return from Italy to Antwerp, evolved from a strong caravaggismo to a more mature and moderate language, in which, under the influence of the flemish master Pablo Rubens, the light will become more homogeneous, the settings richer and the color more varied.

As we move into the 17th century, the splendor of classical antiquity is reborn in works as delicate and subtle as WILLEM VAN MIERIS ‘”Venus and Adonis” embodying the new classical trend that emerged in the 17th century. The most identifying attributes of his style are evident both in the idealization of the female nude and in the absolute perfection in the details and the refinement of the features.

Likewise, from the second half of the seventeenth century, landscape painting will acquire a notable importance in the countries.Since then and throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, representations of seascapes proliferated, which, like the one that concerns us here, reproduces, with a drawing style and precise, a nautical scene of marked dynamism and narrative character that reflects the very powerful foreign trade and the great naval fleet of Holland 35244040)

Those mentioned here represent only a small sample of the plurality, richness and quality of pieces that can be purchased in this auction where, through painting, sculpture and furniture, we manage to project ourselves back to a splendid artistic and cultural past.