Ancient Painting Historic Scene '600-'700 Oil on Canvas

Oil on canvas. North-European School. This is a funny allegorical scene of profane love, that wants to prove how everyone, of any social class and every age, can fall into the trap of falling in love. The background of the canvas is occupied by an enormous keepnet, the basket net used in some kinds of fishing, above its opening sits a putto playing the violin; the keepnet is crowded with couples, while a parade of other couples walks in front of them to reach the entrance. Between them, there are couples of old and young people, rich and poor people, nobles, bourgeois and proletarians. Everyone has a content and light expression, they share looks of love or they benevolently look at the happiness of the others. Inside the keepnet, there is even a couple of royals, that correspond, for their features and clothing, to the Elector Palatine of Rhineland, John William of the Palatinate-Neuburg and his second wife Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici. On the back of the painting, there is a label bearing a historical attribution to Jan Frans Douven (1656-1727), the Dutch artist who moved to Düsseldorf in 1682 as the official painter at the Court of the Elector Palatine of Rhineland, mostly representing scenes of the daily life of the prince and his second wife. The label would confirm the scope of the attribution to an artist of the 17th-18th century in Northern Europe. The painting comes from a historical collection in Milan. It shows some traces of restorations and a patch. Frame in style.

Oil painting on canvas. The wide view of the Imperial Forums of Rome is part of the vast landscape production of the Grand Tour period, intended for wealthy European aristocrats traveling to Europe - and in particular in Italy, where Rome was considered a must - who wanted a souvenir of the places visited. The Roman Imperial Forums are an architectural complex consisting of a series of monumental buildings and squares, the center of political activity in ancient Rome, built over a period of about 150 years, between 46 BC. and 113 A.D. Despite the enlargements, the fires, the restorations and the reconstructions, during the Antiquity the Imperial Forums kept intact both their architectural conformation and their function. Their almost definitive destruction occurred during the Renaissance at the hands of Pope Julius II (1503-1513), who used the whole area as a quarry for materials to be reused in the building and artistic renovation of the city he initiated. The protests of leading artists such as Raphael and Michelangelo were of little use. In the following centuries various excavation campaigns were undertaken, with greater vigor starting from the nineteenth century, but the area was completely excavated at the beginning of the twentieth century and the ancient architecture was almost completely erased to make room for the construction of via dei Fori Imperiali , which connects Piazza Venezia with the Colosseum. The Forum was rediscovered starting from the sixteenth century also thanks to the Roman view painters who at that time loved to paint the ruins emerging in the pasture area. The view proposed here presents the Imperial Forums before the excavations begun in the nineteenth century, when the road that still crosses them had not yet been built: they are still surrounded by green countryside and the Roman hills stand out in the background. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a re-adapted 19th century frame.

Winter Landscape with Figures on Ice

Oil painting on canvas. Flemish school of the XVII-XVIII century. On the frame there is a label attributing to Thomas Heeremans (but with incorrect date). The large scene offers a winter landscape appropriate to the Dutch territory, as it is characterized by a frozen canal, near a village, populated by numerous figures of skaters, intent on daily activities: the horse-drawn sleigh for transporting people, the the man who pushes the "wheelbarrow" full of wood, the child who pushes himself into his little box; other figures pass by on the embankment along the canal. The gray and cold sky of a winter day hangs over everything. The subject was the recurring one in the production of the Dutch painter Thomas Heeremans, who mainly painted winter landscapes of his land, replicating them several times due to the success obtained, and inducing numerous other artists to imitate him; it is therefore thought that this work can be traced back to an imitator of the Heeremans, rather than to him directly. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.

The Tale of Apollo and Marsyas

Oil painting on canvas. Northern Italian school of the seventeenth century. The large canvas derives from an engraving of 1562 by the Venetian Giulio Sanuto, who faithfully reproduced the homonymous work by Bronzino (1503-1572), currently preserved in the Hermitage; compared to the original, the engraving added the group of Muses and modified the landscape background by introducing views of the villages. The work is divided into four scenes, which must be read from right to left. The first scene depicts the musical contest between Apollo and the Silenus Marsyas, who played the flute so well that he was considered superior to the same god; the two contenders are performing, the god with the lyre and the silenus with the flute even upside down (to increase the difficulty of the undertaking), in front of King Midas and the goddess Minerva, recognizable by her attributes, the helmet, the spear and the shield. In the second scene Apollo is intent on skinning Marsyas, to punish him for having won the musical contest; lean on the ground next to him, his cloak and lyre. In the third scene, it is King Midas who is punished by the god for having preferred Marsyas to him: Apollo is putting the donkey's ears on Midas, while Minerva is watching. Finally, the fourth scene, in the foreground on the left, is characterized by a particular figure, identified in the faithful servant and barber of the king: since Midas had ordered him to keep the secret on his donkey ears, not being able to let off steam otherwise, he dug a hole in the ground and yelled into there his secret; in that place, however, legend has it that a bush of reeds grew that with the wind whispered "King midas has donkey ears", thus revealing the dreaded secret. The painting has been previously restored and relined, but currently needs any further color recovery. On the back in pencil there is an old attribution to the Ferrara school ("Ercole da Ferrara"). It is presented in a late 19th century style frame.

Aaron with Moses before the Pharaoh

Oil on canvas. XVII-XVIII century. The great scene tells a biblical episode from the book of Exodus, in which Aaron with Moses before the Pharaoh of Egypt, transforms his staff into a snake, to emulate the tricks that the Egyptian magicians had done to frighten them. The Pharaoh seated on his throne on the left, surrounded by servants, and the magicians on the right, observe the miracle in consternation and fright, while in the center Aaron, recognizable by the priestly headdress, indicates the event while at his side Moses, with the raised finger indicates heaven, to send the miracle back to divine power. The snake here has the shape of a winged dragon, which is trampling the snakes of the Egyptian magi. The typology of the scene and the pictorial modes refer to the production of Antonio Molinari (1655 -1734), one of the most authoritative representatives of Venetian painting at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who distinguished himself for his personal style, characterized by an accentuated theatricality of gestures , from a lively palette and a remarkable fluidity of the brushstroke. Molinari achieved considerable success with the production of room paintings depicting episodes of a historical, mythological or biblical nature, which were widely taken up and re-proposed. The large canvas, restored and relined, is presented in a style frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Lombard area of the late 18th century. The four canvases show scenes from Orlando Furioso, the famous epic poem written by Ludovico Ariosto and published for the first time in 1516. On the frame, on the back, there are handwritten writings in ancient Italian, which say the title of the scene and they give the reference of the song and the verse. All four scenes represent episodes taken from the first two songs of the poem and appear to be sequential. The attributive titles are as follows: 1- “This painting represents that Paladin galiardo (Rinaldo) son of Amone sig. di Monte Albano, which describes Ariosto in canto 1 to verse 12 ”: depicts the moment in which Rinaldo, on foot of his horse Baiardo, sees Angelica escaped from the camp of Namo di Baviera in the wood. 2- "This painting represents Angelica and Ferraù when she comes to their aid, which Ariosto describes in canto 1 verse 14": Angelica fleeing from Rinaldo, meets in the woods Ferraù, a noble Saracen knight who is also in love with the girl, who helps to escape by opposing the Christian knight. 3- “This painting represents Rinaldo and Sacripante who fall down, Angelica runs away from their fury. Ariosto describes it in Canto 2 verse 10 ": Rinaldo and Sacripante fight to compete for the love of Angelica, who in the meantime runs away. 4- “This painting represents Rinaldo and Sacripante in the act they fell for Angelica and were stopped by a spirit in the form of a Valletto. Ariosto describes it in canto 2 verse 15 ": while the two knights fight, Angelica meets a hermit, who, with a spell, evokes a spirit with the appearance of a footman, who interrupts the duel between the two contenders. The paintings therefore belong to a single pictorial cycle, attributable to the end of the eighteenth century and which, in accordance with the neoclassical taste, represents the characters in classical clothes - warriors dressed as ancient soldiers, Angelica dressed in a Roman tunic, shoes and bracelet - , but inserted in a landscape of Northern Italy, a shady and dense forest. The Orlando Furioso had the peculiarity of proposing the warlike theme associated with the love one (in particular the love story between Angelica and Medoro was preferred, which became the subject of numerous works by artists of all centuries) and obtained great popularity and success: His representations were numerous in all ranges of visual pictorial art, in stately frescoes, paintings, ceramics, even apothecary jars, cups, medals, pendulums, candelabra. It began in the Emilian land, the homeland of the poem created by Ariosto for Cardinal Ludovico D'Este, to arrive at the Medici courts, in Lombardy, where subsequently Ariosto's pictorial cycles were carried out in numerous palaces and stately homes. The canvases are presented in gilded style frames.