Ancient Bronze Sculpture Giovanni Varlese Italy '900 Marble Sculpture - Italy Early 1900s

Face

Mixed technique on canvas. Signed lower right. In the vast artistic production of Giacomo Manzù, an excellent sculptor, there are also rare paintings on canvas and numerous drawings on paper, among which the human face is one of the most recurring subjects, in particular that of his wife Inge Schabel, inspiring muse and model favorite of the artist. The face drawn here, although barely sketched with a few strokes made in mixed technique, expresses an intense expressiveness. The work is presented in a frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower right and on the back. Ezio Pastorio, originally from Cremona but transplanted to Valseriana after his studies, is considered "a great Italian master of the 20th century, who knew how to renew the artistic language of the landscape while maintaining a strong link with 19th century painting". His production is post-impressionist in nature, especially in the large landscape production that depicts the Po and Bergamo plains, the Venetian lagoon and some Parisian glimpses, admired during some travels. In his works, Pastorio creates suggestive atmospheres using infinite ranges of colours, which harmonize and sometimes even contrast, but always presented as a transparency which annuls the static nature of the representation and with a delicacy which expresses his devout religiosity towards nature and the created. Less frequent in his production are floral subjects, such as this vase full of daisies, which moreover reflects all the artist's expressive capacity, and his skilful use of colour. The work, coming from a private collection, is presented in a frame.

Landscape with River Glimpse 1906

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower left. The Roman-born artist Cesare Maggi established himself as a pointillist landscape painter, portraying alpine landscapes in the Engadine and Aosta Valley, often enlivened by the inclusion of figures and animals. Becoming a friend of the painter Giacomo Grosso in Turin in 1901, he then successfully oriented himself towards the portrait genre, setting aside the pointillist technique. While still favoring high mountain views, he broadened his subjects by also engaging in seascapes and still lifes. In this work, still from the first period, Maggi portrays a glimpse of the countryside crossed by a calm river, bordered by rows of bare trees and small grassy hills, behind which the farmhouses overlook: already no longer linked to the techniques divisionist, the work is rather characterized by dense and opaque mixtures of color, in which the earth, the water and the farmhouses are superimposed in a continuum broken only by the band of sky above. The work is presented in a period frame.

Three figures

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower left. On the back there is a stamp of the historic Galleria Palmieri in Milan (now no longer existing). The work proposes the typical characters of Franz Borghese';s satirical painting: these are figures that recall, in gestures and clothes, the subjects of 1910, portrayed with almost caricatured, sarcastic features and poses. Borghese's production in fact, after an initial period characterized by a dark and deep, almost dramatic painting, from the 1700s turns into a painting of satire and sarcasm, accentuated by a bright chromatic palette, which aims in particular at the bourgeoisie of the turn of the century. The three figures in this work, two men and a lady, are depicted sideways as they walk in single file in their elegant street clothes: the serious expressions, the distant gazes, seem to underline mutual indifference, as well as the boredom and vacuity of their life, which contrast with the bright and lively colours. The work is presented in a frame.

The path of San Rocco (Camogli)

Oil on cardboard. Signed lower left. On the back this title in pencil. An extremely original landscape painter who experimented with oil painting but also with watercolors and engraving, Raul Viviani came very close to pointillist painting, however developing his own personal technique, characterized by very thin filaments of color in the shape of thin commas, which define the structures of his landscapes. With his transfer to Liguria, which made the landscape of that region the protagonist of his works, his technique changed, moving away from the original divisionism to open up to a broad and summary brushstroke, which finally resulted in the last period in a production of nature death with violent and contrasting colors. This landscape can also be placed in the Ligurian period, which offers a glimpse of a well-known Ligurian locality, still rendered in the characteristic style of Viviani, made of brushstrokes in thin filaments, superimposed on spots of lively color, in the chromatic ranges of the colors of nature. In frame.

Still life

Oil on the table. Signed upper right. An extremely original landscape painter who experimented with oil painting but also with watercolors and engraving, Raul Viviani came very close to pointillist painting, however developing his own personal technique, characterized by very thin filaments of color in the shape of thin commas, which define the structures of his landscapes. With his transfer to Liguria, which made the landscape of that region the protagonist of his works, his technique changed, moving away from the original divisionism to open up to a broad and summary brushstroke, which finally resulted in the last period in a production of nature death with violent and contrasting colors. This still life, a composition of vegetables and a vividly colored bottle, can be placed in this period. The work is presented in a frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Signed in the lower right corner and on the back (Verschafeldt). Light losses of color. In coeval frame with missing parts. Early 20th century.

Poppies in Vase 1948

Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower left. Composition of poppies in vase, with ceramic Madonnina on the rear wall. Noel Quintavalle (known under the pseudonym Noelqui), a native of Ferrara but raised and artistically trained in Milan, was a multifaceted artist. Graduated in architecture, he was self-taught in the arts, but after the great war in which he actively participated, he quickly distinguished himself and exhibited in numerous national and international exhibitions; in the meantime he also carried out literary activities by publishing various volumes (satire, fairy tales, short memories of the war) and also experimented with sculpture and xylography. His pictorial production, which began as a pointillist, was then influenced by the synthesis of modern painting. The subjects most dear to him were the portrait (with a preference for particular female figures, such as dancers) and the landscape. His production of floral subjects dates back to the 1940s, linked to the period in which he recovered the need for interiority, approaching the aesthetic concepts of the art of the "twentieth century". The work is presented in a contemporary frame.

Little Girl

Oil on the table. On the back there are traces of the signature and two labels from Art galleries, the Bottega d'arte of Livorno and the Galleria Manzoni of Milan, bearing the name of the author, the title and the technical data of the work. Livornese by birth, Ludovico Tommasi was trained near the Macchiaioli current, developing a strong sensitivity for color, which led him to create realist works pervaded by harmonious chromatisms. The work is presented in a stylish frame.

Park

Watercolor on paper. Signed lower right. On the back there is a label from the Manzoni Art Gallery in Milan, with the data of the work. A leading exponent of 19th-century Lombard painting which was always linked to the love for the real, Pompeo Mariani was also called "the Italian impressionist", due to the influence in his works of French impressionism and those experiences, not only cultural, which constituted the era of the Belle Époque, which the artist lived between Milan, Bordighera, Nice and Montecarlo. In this small watercolor Mariani offers a glimpse of a city park, adorned with statues along the gate. The painting is presented in a period frame.

Female Portrait

Oil on canvas. Signed at the bottom right. Portrait of a young woman in a black evening dress, enlivened by the large flowered shawl she wears draped over one shoulder. The work of the Romagna artist Alberto Salietti. Although he spent almost all his artistic career in Milan and Liguria, Alberto Salietti - painter, engraver, mosaicist and fresco painter - remained a point of reference for painters from Romagna, especially between the two wars. After moving with his family to Milan, Salietti attended the Brera Academy of Fine Arts until 1914. After the Venice Biennial in 1924, he joined the Novecento movement and became its secretary in 1925. In 1926 he exhibited at the "First exhibition of the Novecento italiano" and in 1927 was one of the founders of the "Group of seven modern painters" together with Funi, Sironi, Tosi, Carrà, Marussig and Bernasconi. As a portraitist and landscape painter, Salietti - who patiently drew on post-impressionist, secessionist and Novecentista influences - made an original contribution to Italian art between the two wars, distinguishing himself by his joyful and optimistic adherence to reality. The painting comes in a frame.

Duel scene 1915

Oil on the table. Signed lower left. Further signature and date on the back. Riccardo Pellegrini, a Milanese painter, was a pupil of Domenico Morelli and trained in the climate of Romanticism. He was a landscape painter and genre painter, but he also created valuable still lifes, with bright colors and precise and realistic design. His landscape production drew on the various places he visited and lived in, in Italy and abroad, especially in Spain and France. In this work Pellegrini proposes a genre scene, a duel at dawn outside the walls of a garden, a rather typical theme of the romantic genre, especially literary. The dynamic figures of the duelists, engaged in the violent and bloody act of the duel, assisted by the godparents, contrast with the quiet of the garden and the delicacy of the flowering bushes. The plays of light and shadow play well, prolonging the shapes of the figures and the vegetation, already with meager outlines. The work is presented in a coeval frame.