PAINTINGS ONLINE | ANCIENT AND CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY

The Ancient Triskelion 1997

Mixed media on board. Signed and dated lower right. On the back, further signature, date and title. Driven by an intense intellectual curiosity that has characterized every moment of his experience, not only creative, but also human and professional, the Ancona artist Giorgio Villa has developed his own principles of thought and action, on rigorous bases of a scientific-mathematical approach, nourished by a profound poetic inspiration and a deep-rooted sense of beauty. The search for a path to follow, free from patterns or cultural ties characterizes his art; Villa moves in the sphere of imagination, feelings and the poetry of images. Each work is the fruit of a meditated inspiration, moment by moment, allowing space for reflection, for the considered gesture, analyzing the relationships between space and matter, between colors and shape, to identify the perfect synthesis, which makes a work of art unique and unrepeatable. In this work Villa depicts the Triskelion, or the ancient symbol formed by three spirals joined at a central point, more generally three intertwined spirals, or, by extension, any other symbol with three protuberances and a triple rotational symmetry.

Oil on canvas. Portrait of a nobleman, proud with his hand resting on the hilt of his sword and dressed in a cloak edged with ermine. At the top right appears the coat of arms of his family, which features a red lion rampant crowned and holding a sword; across is a band with three groups of balls arranged in a flower. A similar lion rampant is found in the coat of arms of some cities in central Italy, such as Faenza. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a contemporary frame in carved and lacquered wood.

The Conversation 1992

Mixed media on paper. Title at the bottom. On the back, the artist's stamp with signature, date, and title. Caccioni, an artist who was born, trained and still lives in Bologna, is one of the protagonists of a generation that has now reached a definitive linguistic maturity and occupies a prominent place within the contemporary artistic panorama. His research mainly uses unusual materials such as acetates, PVC and, more recently, stage backdrops from 19th-century theatrical works, on which he intervenes by painting shapes drawn from a personal memory and from suggestions coming from different cultures and historical periods. A recurring element in Luca Caccioni's work is writing, a self-signifying sign that designs the work and is capable of recounting thoughts; working by superimposition, the images are constructed by adding or subtracting color on the various supports. Work in frame.

Studio Still life 1992

Mixed media on paper. Title at the bottom. On the back the artist's stamp with signature, title and date. Caccioni, an artist who was born, trained and still lives in Bologna, is one of the protagonists of a generation that has now reached a definitive linguistic maturity and occupies a prominent place within the contemporary artistic panorama. His research mainly uses unusual materials such as acetates, PVC and, more recently, stage backdrops of nineteenth-century theatrical works, on which he intervenes by painting shapes drawn from a personal memory and from suggestions coming from different cultures and historical periods. A recurring element in Luca Caccioni's work is writing, a self-signifying sign that designs the work and is capable of recounting thoughts; working by superimposition, the images are constructed by adding or subtracting color on the various supports. Framed work

Oil on canvas. Lombard school of the late 17th century. Scene of a battle fought on a plain between the cavalry of two Nordic armies. In the center, two knights are facing each other with bladed weapons, while around them there are those who shoot, those who play the trumpet, those who have fallen from their horses and beg for help; dust and clouds blur the contours of the surrounding landscape. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.

Landscape with Shepherds and Herds

Oil on canvas. Signed lower right. In a splendid classical landscape, with green hills overlooking a watercourse, a stream in the foreground that then becomes a wide river in the distance, are inserted the figures of a shepherd and a shepherdess who lead their flock to water. The pastoral scenes of this type characterized the production of the Dutch artist Michiel Carree, who was court painter to the King of Prussia in the first decades of the 18th century. The painting, in the first canvas, is presented in a contemporary golden frame, in carved and gilded wood.

Ludovico il Moro's farewell to his wife..

Mixed media (pencil, pen, brown ink and white chalk) on paper. Italian school of the early 19th century. Ludovico Maria Sforza cries at the tomb of his young wife Beatrice d'Este (1475 -1497); around him the friars of Santa Maria delle Grazie and on his left Bramante and Leonardo. On the short side of the marble canopy of the tomb there is the Sforza coat of arms, with two snakes and two eagles. Il Moro was profoundly shaken by the early death in childbirth of his very young wife Beatrice, his companion in his private but also political life, as well as his husband's, a patron of the artistic geniuses of their court, such as Leonardo da Vinci. and Bramante, authors of many pictorial and architectural works of the Visconti-Sforza court. Various versions of this episode are known, especially from the nineteenth century, from that of 1815 by Giovanni Battista Cigola at the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, to that of Alessandro Reati of around 1850. The painting is presented in a carved wooden frame from the late 19th century.

Duck Flight

Bronze sculpture. Signature engraved on the base. Gino Masciarelli, a sculptor originally from Abruzzo but who lived in the Milan area, after having also worked at the Experimental Center for Scientific Research “F. Marinotti” in Lombardy, dealing with high-frequency cinematographic shooting, learned to capture the instability of bodies in movement and the dissolution of matter in space in many of his works. In the sculptures "Human groups" and "Flight" - to which the work presented here belongs -, the dynamism of flight can be observed almost as if it were a photographic sequence. The artist himself said: "Only 8 seconds made an impression on 300 meters of film, the aim was to slow down what the human eye cannot see, I wanted to capture the movement and the projection of these seconds lasted a couple of hours".

Oil painting on canvas. Central Italian school of the 17th century. In its pictorial style, the painting recalls the production of Angelo Caroselli (1585-1652), a Roman Baroque artist who was a painter, copyist, restorer, but also a pasticheur and connoisseur of art, i.e. creator of paintings "in the manner of"- in “technique” and in the “style” of a specific artistic period or of a specific author, even assembling “parts” taken from different paintings. Initially Caravaggesque, Il Caroselli later developed his own personal artistic language, which was copied by many minor artists. In this work the fixed and almost exasperated expressiveness of the character stands out, whose elegance of the seventeenth-century dress and the almost feminine features of the face with its rosy complexion contrast with the crudeness of Goliath's head, bloody, with the large stab wound that stands out against the mortal pallor. The painting has been restored and relined, retaining the original wooden frame. It is presented in a contemporary wooden frame.

Portraits of Children, 1930

Photographs retouched with pastels. Signed bottom right. On the back of three of them is the date 11 November 1930. A photographic sequence of the portrait of three children is shown, who slightly change their pose or expression. They are the work of the British photographer Eva Barrett who, after an initial experience as a painter, decided to dedicate herself to photography, thinking that "it was better to be a first-rate photographer than a second-rate [painter]. Having moved to Rome in 1913, she established her laboratory here. Pictorialist, with a small camera, Eva Barrett created her own photographic method that was reminiscent of drawing sketches: she applied a few very light pencil strokes, managing to create subdued images but with particularly dense blacks, thus maintaining the characteristics of photography and portraits. In this way he was very successful and his career took off. Eva Barrett photographed the Italian royal family, the wives and children of foreign ambassadors, as well as received numerous commissions from European royalty in Belgium, Sweden, Greece. The four portraits are presented in style frames.

The Announcement of Defeat at Waterloo

Oil painting on canvas. French school of the 19th century. The scene, set in the poor bedroom of an elderly war veteran, who is crying in his bed, sees his family telling him the sad news of the defeat at Waterloo, as can be deduced from the sheet of newspaper in the woman's hands, on which the name of the historic location where Napoleon Bonaparte was definitively defeated. The canvas shows signs of previous restorations, in particular the patch corresponding to the female figure is clearly visible. It is presented in an early 20th century setting.

Oil on canvas. Mid 19th century. The large scene tells an unidentified historical episode, set in the Renaissance period, in which an archbishop listens to the plea of a young man in arms, accompanied by his mother, who supports his plea. The setting is inside the reception hall of the high prelate, presumably in the bishop's palace, which from the loggia in the background overlooks the Cathedral, whose dome can be glimpsed; the bishop is surrounded by his subordinates and guards, while different people of the people attend. Particular is the presence of the man sitting in the foreground on the left, who looks towards the viewer and points to the scene, as if he were telling it. The atmosphere is played on the contrasts between lights and shadows, between the bright colors of the dominant characters compared to the dull and suffused tones of the surrounding figures, who literally tend to disappear into the shadows at the limits of the scene. The work is part of that large nineteenth-century production that drew on the historical or literary subject, re-proposing it in a romantic key. The painting, restored and relined, is presented in an important frame from the second half of the 19th century, with some shortcomings.

Oil on panel. Northern European school of the late 19th century. In the composition inside a shed, hunted game lies on a level; on the left the muzzle of the hunting dog appears but is turned towards a nest full of chirping birds, located above the shaft of the carriage seen on the right. The painting is presented in a period frame.

Figures with Autumnal Still Life

Oil painting on canvas. The H.Sanders signature is present on the barrel at the bottom left. The scene, set outdoors in a street of a Flemish city, with the canal in the background on the left, sees in the foreground a vegetable seller behind her stall, which is set up with a varied composition of winter vegetables, a composed still life from cauliflowers, cabbage, carrots, corn on the cob; next to the woman, a passer-by carrying a harpoon on his shoulder is offering her some fish, evidently the fruit of his catch that he wants to sell. The setting brings to mind Amsterdam, the city where the Dutch painter Hercules (or Herkules) Sanders was born and lived, who established himself mainly as a portraitist, but of whom an interior genre scene is known, currently at the Detroit Institute of Arts, dated 1647 and entitled "Woman cleaning fish", whose female figure closely resembles the seller of the work presented here. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.

Oil painting on canvas. The biblical episode depicted refers to the story of Daniel, the prophet in the court of King Darius the Mede who, for having prayed to his God, was condemned to be thrown into the lions' den. But God saved Daniel, sending an angel to close the jaws of the beasts, and the king pardoned Daniel by instead condemning those who had denounced him. The subject has been depicted several times in art, for the fascination linked to history but also for its exotic flavor due to the presence of wild beasts; in particular we remember the version by Rubens of 1615, where the prophet is depicted naked in the underground pit, while he prays ardently, surrounded by a crowd of ferocious lions. The work presented here instead proposes a version centered on the dialogue between the prophet and the angel, who face each other, standing out with the vivid colors of their robes against the dark background of a prison; there is only one lion, meekly crouching at the angel's feet, and therefore the spiritual and salvific dimension of the biblical event prevails. According to the famous art historian Maurizio Marini, a specialist in the painting of Caravaggio and Baroque art, who had had the opportunity to view the painting years ago, the work could be attributable to Antonio Maria Vassallo (1620 -1664) for the compositional and chromatic choices. The painting, restored and relined, is presented with a listello frame.