PAINTINGS OF THE '900
 

Flowers

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower right. Further signature and title on the back. Self-taught Milanese artist, Giovan Francesco Gonzaga declared "my true teacher is Nature", and faithful to her, he dedicated himself mainly to scenes with horses (a passion inherited from his experience in the Savoy Cavalry during the war) to landscapes and still lifes , always depicted "en plein air". Vittorio Sgarbi wrote about him: "The wisdom of Giovan Francesco Gonzaga lies in the drawing, which is strong and decisive..... The images vibrate with restlessness, in the sign of man's struggle against himself, in the hell of a a story that always seems to repeat the same drama. But if the preparatory drawing is admirable, this artist's color has a royalty and sensitivity that come from a musical perception of color, where the palette is expressed in sudden changes and rhythms buttons". In frame.

Four panel composition, 1978

Mixed technique on canvas applied to wooden panels, which propose a sequence. At the bottom right the artist GB's initials and the numbering of the panels; on the reverse of each panel there is the full signature, with the date and the following sequential titles: "By Bosch", "Declination of an owl", Transcription" and "Disappearance for coquetry". Gabriella Benedini has defined her figure as artist as "a nomad in search of the profound meaning of things". Although attracted and interested by abstract-informal painting first, by Existential Realism and then by New Figuration, Gabriella Benedini proceeds with a strictly personal research not assimilable to any specific current. All the seventies were marked mainly by pictorial works which were the reflection of literary ideas filtered by her need for growth and comparison. Through her passion for Alchemy, Benedini began to transform everything she could into works of art. understood at hand; shells, pages of old books, bottles, everything combines into a harmonious whole that recalls spaces. His works therefore become above all three-dimensional, or to be hung on the wall, or they are sculptures, even large ones. The four panels are presented here in a single frame.

Mountain View

Oil on the table. Signed lower right. Specializing in landscape painting, the painter Romeo Borgognoni mainly depicted glimpses of the Pavia countryside, in a style which, although with realist rigor, draws on impressionism for its bright and vibrant brushstrokes. Here an Alpine view is proposed, with huts in the foreground and the snow-capped massif rising majestically in the background. The work is presented in a frame.

City Glimpse

Oil on wood. Signed on the back. Riccardo Viriglio, a landscape painter from Pavia, portrayed urban views mainly of his city and landscape views especially of Lombardy. Here too there is a view of a city square with a portico. In a stylish frame.

Oil on cardboard. Unidentified signature, of a French name, lower right. Numerous figures on the beach are busy arranging the fishing boats on the shore, some perhaps are pulling one aground. The painting is post-impressionist. The work is presented in a frame.

Countryside Glimpse

Oil on cardboard. Signed lower right. Mario Acerbi, son of the Pavia painter Ezechiele, dedicated himself to a realistic painting of impressionist origin, in which color plays the main role associated with a skilful ability to modulate light. His landscape production, like his father's, looks above all to the city and countryside of Pavia, his places of origin and life. The painting is presented in a frame.

Landscape with Shepeherds and Ruins

Oil on wood. Signed lower right. Antonio Oberto, a post-impressionist painter from Pavia, dedicated himself to landscapes but also to the decorations of public buildings in his city. He mainly proposed views of Pavia and the Pavia countryside along the Ticino, depicted, through rapid brushstrokes, in a late nineteenth-century style. A large landscape is proposed here along the river, precisely the Ticino in its flat stretch, precisely the one that borders the city of Pavia; in the foreground, on the right the remains of neoclassical structures, on the left two shepherds with their flock. The work is presented in a period frame.

Rovereto, 1920

Oil on the table. Signed lower left. The title and date on the back in pencil. Riccardo Viriglio, a landscape painter from Pavia, portrayed urban views mainly of his city and landscape views especially of Lombardy. Here is a glimpse of the village of Roveleto, a small village in the Piacenza countryside at the foot of the pre-Apennine hills. The work is presented in a frame.

Mountain Cabins

Oil on wood. signed lower right. Mario Moretti Foggia lived and worked until his death in Macugnaga, the mountain town in the Ossola Valley that he often depicted in his works, often offering glimpses of mountain huts in the valleys as in this work. Trained at the school of Tallone, Moretti Foggia was predominantly a landscape painter, who proposed realistic views characterized by a very bright and material chromatic palette. The work is presented in a period frame.

Caricatures of Gandusio and Melato

Tempera on paper. Signed at top right. Luigi Daniele Crespi was a painter, journalist and illustrator active in Rome from 1912 to 1940, of whom no other biographical information is available. Linked to the Futurist movement, he was also active in advertising posters and set design. His elegant caricatures and satirical drawings were published in many magazines and covers. In this drawing Crespi offers caricatures of two well-known show business personalities of the time, Antonio Gandusio (1875 - 1951), who was one of the most interesting Italian comic actors, both film and theatre, almost a commedia dell'arte mask, and Maria Melato (1885 - 1950), a theatre, radio and cinema actress. Framed.

Textile Reproduction

Textile reproduction in silk, in two tones Made from a design by T. Strazza, as shown below on the left. The faithful reproduction of Leonardo's painting is part of a flourishing Lombard manufacturing production, which re-proposed the masterpiece in different formats. The work is exposed in a contemporary wooden frame.

Mixed media on paper. Signed and dated lower right.

The Portrait of the Queen

Oil painting on canvas. At the bottom right there is an unidentified signature. The large canvas presents an interior scene, set in an eighteenth-century court: in the richly furnished room with velvet curtains, sculptures and large paintings on the walls, a queen (identified by her ermine-edged cloak) poses for the painter who is her portrait, surrounded by the court, smiling ladies and gentlemen, and a prelate, who instead seems rather dissatisfied. The work looks at the production of the painter Arturo Ricci (1854 -1919), who specialized in genre scenes set in eighteenth-century courts. The painting is presented in a frame assembled with elements from the early 1900s.

Impression Ligurian Rivarolo pine forest

Watercolor on paper applied to the table. Unidentified signature lower left. On the back a dedication with further signature, the title and date of the work. Country view of the small hamlet of Genoa, with a shepherdess and her goats in the middle of the meadow. In a contemporary frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Italian school of the early 1900s. The large scene is set in a desolate landscape completely covered in snow: on the left in the foreground, behind a group of carts and mobile homes (probably a gypsy camp) a woman cries while peeking out from behind a cloth; observe the figures moving away from the center of the scene, only silhouettes but clearly definable: two gendarmes flank a man in plain clothes, evidently under arrest. A street lamp and some dry and bare trees occupy the space on the right. The whole scene, painted with broad brushstrokes and without contours, is dominated by the greyish-white shades of the snow, the gray sky, the indistinct peaks in the background, or rather all the naturalistic elements, including one of the two horses tied to rest, while the other elements, the figures, the house, the street lamps, the other horse, and also the footprints on the snow that trace the path of the three figures in the distance, are characterized by brown and ocher colours, rather dull: the whole underlines the drama of the scene, perhaps also the desperation and sense of loneliness and abandonment of the woman. Restored and relined, the painting is not signed on the front (possible signature on the back covered by the relining?). The painting is presented in a period frame.

Roman Landscape

Oil painting on canvas. signed lower left. Further signature and title on the back. Born and lived in Rome, Sdruscia was an interpreter of the so-called Roman School, mainly creating glimpses of his city, in a pictorial style that looks to the great masters of the period, such as Guidi and De Pisis. The work is presented in a frame.

Woman at the Spinning Wheel

Tempera on paper. Signed lower left. Probably a sketch, due to the rapid drafting and unfinished contours, this work presents a young woman sitting spinning at a spinning wheel. The artist Gino Simonetti, painter but also writer, born in the Piacenza area, lived and worked mainly in Turin. 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.

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.