CHARLES ANDRÉ VAN LOO (attr. to) (Nice, 1705 - Paris, 1765) Allegorical Scenes Oil on panel, 55.5X84.7 cm Provenance: Turin, private collection Charles André van Loo's training took place in the workshop of his brother Jean Baptiste, with whom he acquired a culture of international taste and a profound influence of Italian painting. While still young, he followed his elder brother on a trip to Turin and in 1712 moved to Rome, where he studied at the school of the Italian painter Benedetto Luti, also meeting the French sculptor Pierre Legros. In 1723, he left Italy and moved to Paris where he received a prize for a painting of a historical subject in 1727, beating his future rival François Boucher. After returning to Turin he was called upon by Victor Amadeus II of Savoy, King of Sardinia, for whom Charles-André painted a series of illustrations depicting scenes from the poems of Torquato Tasso, as well as working on several frescoes for the Palazzina di caccia at Stupinigi. In 1734 he returned to Paris and in 1735 became a member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, a role that consecrated his fame as a painter.