Antique Paintings

Antique paintings for sale

in this collection cover three centuries of European production, from 18th century oils on canvas and panel to 19th century framed works and early 20th century pieces in oil, watercolor, and pastel. Each painting has been selected individually for the quality of the work and the honesty of its condition.

Paintings occupy a different place in a room from furniture. A piece of antique furniture holds objects or supports a person. A painting holds your attention, and the best antique and vintage art does that without effort, without explanation, and without needing to match anything around it.

Antique Art for Sale

The antique art market covers an enormous range, from museum-quality oils attributed to known painters to unsigned period works of genuine skill and character. This collection focuses on the latter category: original paintings that were made to be lived with rather than preserved behind glass in an institution, and that carry the particular quality of genuinely old work, the brushwork, the surface, the way light and shadow are handled, that no contemporary art can replicate.

Oil painting on canvas is the dominant medium across all three centuries represented here. Framed oil paintings on canvas from the 17th through the early 20th century form the core of the collection, with additional works on panel, works on board, and a selection of watercolor and pastel pieces that suit different rooms and different lights. Unframed works appear occasionally where the original frame has been lost, and framed oil on canvas examples with their original frame and glass intact are noted as such.

The collection has been assembled over decades, drawing on the same networks and the same eye for quality that built the antique furniture collection at Antiqueria Breitling. Paintings and furniture from the same period work naturally together, and many of the pieces here were acquired alongside furniture from the same provenance.

18th Century Antique Paintings

Oil paintings from the 18th century reflect the dominant genres of the period: portraiture, landscape, still life, and religious and mythological subjects. Each of these genres has its own conventions and its own visual language, and understanding that language makes looking at these works considerably more rewarding.

Portrait painting of the 18th century ranges from grand formal oils intended for the great houses of Europe to smaller, more intimate works made for private clients who wanted a record of a face they loved. An antique oil portrait from this period, whether framed in the original carved and gilded frame or in a later period frame of appropriate quality, brings a human presence into a room that no other object quite replicates.

Landscape painting of the 18th century, particularly the Dutch and Flemish tradition that carried through from the previous century, produced oils of considerable atmospheric subtlety. A pastoral landscape in oil on canvas or oil on panel from this period, with its layered glazes and careful treatment of light, reflects a level of technical mastery that rewards close looking. The surface of a well-preserved 18th century oil painting has a depth that comes from the way the paint was built up in stages, and that depth is immediately apparent in the room.

Still life painting, particularly the Dutch and Flemish tradition of vase with flowers, game pieces, and table arrangements, produced some of the most technically accomplished works of the period. An 18th century framed oil painting of a floral still life in the Dutch manner, with its layered detail and its characteristic cool light, suits almost any interior and provides a focal point for a gallery wall that more recent works rarely match.

19th Century Antique Paintings

The 19th century was the most productive period in European painting history, and the variety of antique paintings for sale from this century reflects that. Romanticism, Realism, the Barbizon school, Impressionism, and the academic tradition all produced work of considerable range and quality, and original paintings from these movements are available at price points that serious contemporary art has long since left behind.

French oil painting of the 19th century is particularly well represented here. The influence of painters like Claude Monet, whose treatment of light and atmosphere transformed European painting in the latter part of the century, is visible in the work of dozens of lesser-known Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters whose original oils on canvas are genuinely beautiful works. A framed oil on canvas in the Impressionist manner, with its visible brushwork and its interest in natural light, works in a contemporary interior as naturally as in a period room.

Belgian and Dutch painters of the late 19th century produced landscapes, genre scenes, and figure studies of exceptional quality, and this collection includes several examples from this tradition. A late 19th century Belgian landscape in oil, framed in a period carved frame, brings a specific quality of light into a room that reflects the northern European painting tradition at its most accomplished.

Watercolor and pastel works from the 19th century offer a different visual quality from oils. A framed pastel portrait or a watercolor landscape from this period has a softness and immediacy that the oil medium does not produce, and these works suit rooms where a lighter presence is needed. A 19th century framed lithograph, particularly a French example from the later decades of the century, is a related form that suits a study or hallway well.

20th Century Antique Paintings

Early 20th century paintings bridge the gap between the antique and the modern in ways that make them particularly versatile. Works produced before 1925 are now a century old, which qualifies them as antique by any serious definition, and the best examples from this period reflect the full range of early modernist influence alongside a continuing tradition of skilled representational work.

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist influence runs through much of the early 20th century oil painting represented here. Original oils in this manner, with their interest in color, light, and the visible surface of the paint itself, suit contemporary interiors with particular ease because they read as both historically grounded and visually current.

Vintage paintings from the early 20th century in watercolor and pastel are among the more accessible works in the collection, suited to a bedroom, a study, or any space that benefits from a smaller work of genuine quality. Vintage art that brings color and light into a room without demanding the wall space of a large oil is consistently useful, and the selection here covers a range of subjects and formats.

For related decorative works from the same periods, the antique furniture collection covers pieces that complement these paintings in a considered interior, and the 19th century antique art section covers additional works from the most productive century in European painting history.

If you are looking for a specific work or subject that is not currently listed, write to us at contact@antiqueria-breitling.com. The collection includes works not yet photographed or catalogued, and a request for a particular period, subject, or medium is worth making directly.