Description
Very little is known about Francesco Bertos, a highly original artist who created a considerable number of complicated pyramidal groups in a very distinctive, ingenious style that mirrors the lightness and airiness of contemporary rococo painting in France.
These four groups (Walters 54.659, 54.657, 54.660, and 54.658) are allegories (symbolic representations) of the four continents, of which the world was then thought to consist. All have their names engraved. In the allegory of Africa, the continent is depicted by people who, in a simple, peaceful way of life, gather grain from the fertile ground. A lion and a snake indicate the African continent.
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