Liege School, 18th Century

These two canvases, painted in trompe-l’oeil, were probably part of a more extensive decorative ensemble, set into the woodwork of a distinguished residence, as is suggested by the fact that they illustrate, in the middle and lower registers of their compositions, four well-known episodes from the Odyssey: ‘Ulysses and Circe’ with ‘Ulysses shipwrecked’, and ‘Ulysses tightening his bow’ followed by ‘Ulysses killing the suitors’.

The classical character of the subjects as well as the treatment of the architecture and the sculptural elements in bas-relief and in the round, along with a relatively restrained and cool palette, inevitably evoke Dutch trompe-l’oeil production at the turning of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, notably the work of Jacob de Wit and especially that of the Liége-born Gérard de Lairesse, some of whose decorative works, in their classicism and patently erudite quality, can be compared to these two paintings.