Antique (?) wooden frame with sconces and painting

Hello Antiquers,

My wife and I recently purchased a rather pretty wooden frame, which holds an original painting of the grand canal in Venice with the Basilica Santa Maria della Salute. The painting is signed "Pattulo", but we haven't come up with any particular artist by this name/signature. The painting is rather pretty – although I'm sure it's a rather common scene in paintings. The frame is also quite nice – old wood, it appears to have been repaired in one or two places (perhaps evident in photos).

Anyway – we got this to commemorate our anniversary trip last year to Venice and would love to have a bit more information on this if anyone might have a suggestion.

Thanks so much!

 

Hi, Morg! Where did you acquire your painting and what were you told about it?

Debora

 

Hello Debora,

Thank you for following up so quickly! Oddly enough we purchased it at an estate sale a few months ago – the group that managed the estate unfortunately didn't know any of the history of the item(s) and the closest family/relative lives across the country and did not know anything about this particular item either when we reached out about it – so it remains a mystery to us.

I'm sorry I don't have more information, but the estate was in north Texas.

Thank you!

 

Thank you for providing the additional information. May we also have dimensions please?

Debora

 

Morg, to my eye, it appears to be the top half of an antique pier glass or trumeau mirror which has been repurposed by placing it on a newer base. Is it meant to hang or stand?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pier_glass

Debora

 

Sure thing! The frame is about 36" at the base and the total height is 37". The tapered portion at the top measures 14" wide. The depth (depending on where I measured) is anywhere from 1.5" at the lowest to 3.5" at the deepest (the base).

Old nails remain in most of what I assume are sconces on the sides (you can see one sticking out/up a bit on the right side).

 

This would make sense to me – I was not familiar with pier glass. I'm not sure if this would have been part of the repurposing, but it is intended to be hung (sorry, I had not uploaded a photo that showed the wire because it seemed a bit redundant with the other photo of the backside).

 

This one is executed in metal but you can get the idea.

Debora

 

I see – yes. The trumeau mirror sounds correct. I would also not be surprised if the insert was added later, since the wood backing is different from the rest of the frame. I'll do some digging now on trumeau mirrors! My wife and I weren't sure what to call the general style and haven't had much success figuring out where this could have come from on our own.

Thank you so much again!

 

Someone has clearly made additions as the plywood backing and new clips on back show. And the signature "Patullo" is also in a modern hand.

Debora

 

Yea, the plywood makes me wonder also!