Italian school; 17th century.

Italian school; XVII century.
"Classical ladies".
Oil on copper.
Own frame of the eighteenth century.
Measurements: 23 x 16 cm; 28 x 21 cm (frame).
This painting, ascribed to the Italian school of the seventeenth century, represents two classical ladies in a landscape environment that functions as a narrative scenario and as a symbolic frame. The work is situated within the figurative tradition of the Seicento, where the female representation acquires both an idealized and anecdotal character, resorting to an aesthetic that combines fidelity to nature with a desire for ennoblement typical of Baroque classicism. The artist constructs the figures through a soft modeling and a warm palette, enhanced by the contrast between ocher, red and green tones that give depth and dynamism to the composition. The affectionate gesture and physical proximity between the two women suggests a scene of daily intimacy or an episode of moral reading, frequent in Italian painting of the century, although without the narrative explicitness of a recognizable biblical or mythological theme.
From the stylistic point of view, the work is inscribed in a more decorative and courtly line close to the emotional vibration associated with painters like Guercino.
The work embodies a moderate Italian baroque, oriented towards idealized beauty and refinement of form rather than narrative intensity. Its quality resides in the harmony of the chromatism, the delicacy in the textile description and the compositional balance, features that link it to a workshop or school production rather than to the hand of a first-rate master, but which faithfully illustrate the aesthetic concerns of the 17th century in Italy.