Large Vintage Mirror from the 1940s Wooden Frame Burl Veneer

Oil painting on canvas. Initials and date bottom right. On the path in the middle of the countryside, a family of travelers with their mounts stop under the shelter of the branches of a tree. Under a gray sky, in the distance, the smoke of a fire rises in the middle of the fields, which another farmer observes. The work is presented in a period frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Italian school of the 17th century. The large scene represents the dramatic event of the death of Jesus on the Cross, with all the actors who appear in the Gospel, emerging from a dark and gloomy background in which a dull sun can just be glimpsed on the left. In the center the large Cross of Christ stands out almost alone, occupying the upper part of the painting; on both sides the crosses of the two crucified thieves with Jesus, the one on the left, the good redeemed thief, turned to look and talk to Christ, the one on the right in a frontal position, with his gaze running away from the center. At the foot of the Cross, on the left Mary and the group of pious women behind her, on the right Saint John the Apostle; all around, the priests, the accusers of Jesus who are still arguing among themselves, and in the background all the people. Standing out in the foreground at the bottom left is the half-length figure of a modern-day priest looking at the Cross with clasped hands, and which probably corresponds to the person who commissioned the canvas. The canvas was restored and relined, and applied to a new stretcher. It is presented in a stylish frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Northern Italian school of the seventeenth century. In the portrait of this no longer young woman, dressed in an austere black dress that blends into the background, the white lace of the neck and sleeves and the detachable stomacher, or rather the richly embroidered bib to simulate a jewel, invented at the end of the '600 to cover the deep necklines of women's dresses, following the Catholic moralizing influence of the French court; the woman then exhibits a fine gold bracelet on her wrist. Restored and relined in the 19th century, the painting is presented in a late 19th-early 20th century frame.

Male Portrait

Crayon and chalk on paper. Signed lower left. At the bottom right is the wording "from photography". The painter and poet from Portogruaro mainly devoted himself to sacred decorative painting for the churches of the Veneto and Piedmont. The portrait proposed here is presented in a coeval frame, which needs restoration due to multiple deficiencies.

Oil painting on canvas. Italian school of the seventeenth century. St. James of Alphaeus, one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, is said to be the younger to be clearly distinguished from the other apostle named James, whose father was instead Zebedee and who is traditionally called James the Greater. In this painting he is depicted according to classical iconography, which describes him with a beard and long hair, dressed in a tunic and pallium, holding a long hooked staff; his attribute, in fact, is the instrument with which he was martyred, i.e. the stick used to card the wool with a hooked triangular end. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a regilded late 19th century frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Scene taken in reverse and with different variations in the background and in some details, from the work of Pieter Van Avont (1600 -1652), probably disseminated through engravings. This sacred subject was widely proposed in pictorial production, as an emblem of the Family, a fundamental model of the bonds of affection, love and understanding that every human family is called to express. Also in this representation the parental tenderness, the affections of the extended family in the figure of the little cousin Giovanni, the serene relationships between the children, watched over by the adults, transpire. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a 19th century frame.

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. Northern European school of the 19th century. Portrait of a curvy and composed lady, in sober house dress. Restored and relined, it is presented in a period frame.

Stable interior

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower left. The work was previously acquired at the Sotheby's auction in Milan on 10/12/2007. It was exhibited in 1991 in the exhibition "Giovanni Sottocornola. Images from a collection" held in Milan at the Silbernagl Gallery. After an initial pictorial phase dedicated to portraits and still lifes, in the 1880s Giovanni Sottocornola approached social themes, which were becoming the favorite subjects of young Lombard painters attentive to the poorest aspects of society, linked to the adoption of original artistic techniques. Sottocornola embraced the practice of pointillist painting, of which he wrote in 1895 "For now it is certain, I am convinced that there is no other painting more capable of conveying certain sensations than this one". However, this type of painting remained entirely focused on light, on its uncertain tonal vibrations, as happens in the Interior of a stable, created towards the end of the 1980s, where the plays of light and shadow play and create the effects visual in the brushstrokes of color played on a few chromatic ranges, those of browns, expressed in a wide variety of shades. The work is presented in a period 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.