Italian Paintings
This is a collection of about twenty-five works ranging from the 16th to the 18th century. Most notable 17th century pieces are An Allegory of Fortune by Lorenzo Lippi and St Cecilia crowned by an Angel by Giovanni Romanelli. A fine companion pair of genre scenes A Boy with a basket of Vegetables and A Boy with a Dog by Giacomo Ceruti of c.1740s were the first pieces to enter this collection, in 1893, and they are the finest works by Ceruti in any public gallery in Britain.
A notable recent acquisition was a portrait of James Stewart by Pompeo Batoni bought in 1997. James Stewart was an Ulsterman from Killymoon near Cookstown , Co. Tyrone, who made the Grand Tour to Italy between 1766-68 and sat to Batoni in Rome in 1767.
Image: Pompeo Batoni, James Stewart of Killymoon, 1767. Photograph Ulster Museum. Purchased with the aid of grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the National Art Collections Fund and the Esm Mitchell Fund.
Other notable works from the 17th and 18th centuries are St Francis of Assisi at Prayer by Christophano Allori, Pan and Diana by Filippo Lauri, Pastoral Landscape with figures by Donato Creti, An Allegory of Piety Rejecting War and Literature by Francesco Solimena and two capricci (imaginary scenes) of classical ruins, one attributed to Michele Marieschi the other from the studio of Giovanni Paolo Panini.