Item Details:

PLEASAURE VS. WISDOM

ANONYMOUS

17th CENTURY

Oil Painting on Canvas,

Size: 27.8 x 22.0 in; 70.49 x 55.88 cm

Signed: unsigned

Oil on relined canvas. Very good condition. Desirable capriccio landscape with classical ruins and foreground figures, at odds, engaged in spirited discussion – the erect, Old Philosopher, lecturing to reclining, scantily- robed men, who, ostensibly, lacking in discipline and interest to develop their mental acuities, are merely content, enjoying leisure, and the pleasures of the flesh. Clever, parallel “argument“ between the barking dog) symbolic of impulse and instinct), and the unresponsive garden statuary Gabriel, symbolizing, universal unchanging, truths and wisdom, transcending the mortal plane, reminding us that the generation gap is not unique to our age, but has persisted for eons, proving Harry Truman’s cogent statement that “the only thing new in this world is the history we don’t know“. Size unframed, parentheses centimeters/inches) 58 x 73 cm) 22.8 x 28.7“). Size framed 74 x 89 cm) 29.1 x 35“). The frame is 18th century hand carved.