PAINTINGS ONLINE | ANCIENT AND CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY

Still Life with Birds

Oil on canvas. Signed lower left. French painter Charles Monginot became known for his still lifes and genre scenes, with recurring references to the world of hunting, as in this work. His works are characterized by intense realism and vivid colors, which often emerge from dark backgrounds. The work is presented in a contemporary gilded frame.

Oil on panel. Northern European school, late 19th century. Inside a large, bare, yet bright, room with arched vaults, two men are playing dice; on a table to the side are their capes and hats, and beneath it a drum: it was probably a rest stop for soldiers and drummers. On the back of the work is a cartouche of participation in the 1892 Exposition Versaillese. The work is presented in a contemporary frame, with minor losses.

Child on Horseback

Oil on canvas. Signed MAGO lower right. Maurizio Goracci, aka Mago, is a Roman painter of figurative subjects, with figures that, though well-defined, are always set against a surreal background, shaded in acidic palettes, lending a sense of the fantastic. A recurring theme is a figure on horseback, this time a child, whose face and extremities are recognizable, while the entire body, as well as the horse's silhouette, are covered in bright, floral fabrics, standing out against the undefined, dark background. The work is presented in a frame.

Landscape with Figures and Cattle

Oil on canvas. The work, signed Sorolla lower right and dated 1928, harks back to the style of Joaquim Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923), the renowned Valencian painter who chose to reflect the Mediterranean light in the everyday scenes of his city, in a unique style known as luminism. His works are characterized by their plein air painting, depicting simple people often framed in fishing and sea scenes, capturing customs and traditions, as well as the freedom with which they reflect light and color. In particular, the urban beaches of Valencia, animated by numerous figures, including bathers and others, were a recurring setting in many of his paintings. In this work, the scene is indeed that of a beach, where figures with some cattle pass by, while beached boats and bathers can be glimpsed in the background. The work, which is effectively pictorial, despite being very close to Sorolla's manner and style, is not recognized as authentic by the artist's official archive. It is presented in a period frame.

Oil on canvas. 19th-century Northern European school. In the scene, set on a barren, snow-covered plain with a frozen river flowing through it, a large horse-drawn sleigh is parked on the bank, carrying several people: a woman with a child in her arms is preparing to climb aboard, watched by the driver, while another female figure, holding her child by the hand, walks away across the ice. It looks like a Nordic public transport stop! The work is presented in a late-19th-century frame, which has several missing or damaged parts.

Landscape with Buildings, 1884

Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower left. A landscape painter, Henry Robinson Hall painted primarily views of the Scottish countryside, featuring herds of cattle or rural dwellings, such as this small village nestled in the flat countryside, crossed by a slow-flowing stream; the rosy hues of the sky create a romantic and serene atmosphere. The canvas requires restoration due to several paint losses. Presented in a period gilded frame.

Still Life, 1976

Oil on hardboard. Signed and dated lower right. On the back is a label with the artist's stamps, detailing the work. A Parma-born artist who also lived in Milan for many years, Proferio Grossi created numerous still lifes, paintings of objects in which he sought an aesthetic sense, which he alternated with abstract painting. This composition also belongs to the figurative style, a linear and orderly composition, both in the placement of the objects and in the color choices, of everyday objects indicative of peasant life. The work is presented in a frame.

Oil on metal plaque. Delicate portrait of a child, presented in a contemporary embossed and gilded metal frame.

River Landscape with Figures

Oil on canvas. Signed lower right. Ivan Karpoff, of Russian origin but raised and established as an artist in Italy, gained recognition for his paintings, which oriented themselves toward the Italian Impressionist realism of the late 19th century; he devoted himself primarily to landscapes and portraits. In this work, he depicts a glimpse of flat countryside crossed by a wide river; a woman and her child walk along the path that runs alongside it. Framed.

Landscape with Figures 1929

Oil on panel. Signed and dated lower right. Luigi Comolli, a Milanese artist, distinguished himself for his landscape and still life paintings. His work displays an Impressionist influence, drawn from his formative years in Paris. The work is presented in a contemporary gilded frame.

Porch with Figures

Oil on cardboard. Signed upper right. Gregorio Mariani is best known for his engravings of Roman antiquities, but he also established himself as a painter of genre scenes, often depicting period figures, and as a portraitist. In this work, which displays an impressionist influence in its nuanced color and interplay of light, he depicts a scene of 18th-century city life: numerous figures, whose flowing women's dresses are visible, wander beneath a high portico, between whose arches opens a glimpse of the sea, crisscrossed by ships. The work is presented in a contemporary wooden frame.

Invasion 1996

Acrylic and sand on canvas. Title, signature, and date on the back. Ferrari's oeuvre has developed entirely around the sign, passing through various interpretative phases. This work belongs to the period after 1995, in which the linearity of the sign gives way to chaos, forms meet and clash freely within the canvas, and the previously used writing breaks in all directions. The sign is completely free of superstructures and is able to express itself in its entirety, manifesting dynamically across the entire surface of the painting. These works are created with black sand from Otranto, a material that allows Ferrari to express the full theatricality of the sign and which still represents the fundamental element of his painting today: through the sand, the sign traces its paths within the space of the painting and beyond.

Embroidery on silk, mounted on a panel. The tapestry dates to the Meiji period (1868-1912), which coincides with the reign of Emperor Mutsuhito (known posthumously as Emperor Meiji), and marked a profound transformation for Japan, moving from an isolated feudal society to a modern industrial and military power. It depicts two tsuru, or Japanese cranes, among flowering chrysanthemum plants. In Japanese culture, the tsuru is a symbol of longevity. The tapestry has been mounted in a frame, with a large portion of the fabric folded on the back.

Landscape

Acrylic on canvas. Signature and title on the back. In the artistic production of Arturo Vermi, who, together with his friends at Cenobio, dedicates himself to the research and analysis of the Sign as an expressive trait, his search for "a calm, a silence [...]" dates back to the post-1985 years, as he himself said: "simple values, in their wild state, essential and pure, and so I found the blank page, the space, but not to fill it, but rather to strip it and leave a silver horizontal sign in the middle of a blue, or two signs in the middle of the entire empty painting, and so I called that series "Landscapes."

Mixed media on canvas. Signed lower right. After his initial Futurist phase, Sordini's painting allowed the material to take center stage and became increasingly rarefied. His interest in the sign grew and became more defined—a slender and sparse sign, primary yet sinuous, and in a soft, delicate, almost impalpable palette. Sordini "uses a completely graphic technique to create sparse, subtle traces of color on the canvas, dominated by a single hue, that evoke memories of filamentary anthropoid images".

Oil on canvas. 18th-century Tuscan School. The large scene tells the tragic story of Apollo and Daphne, recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to myth, the god Apollo, having mocked Cupid, is struck by him with an arrow of love, causing him to fall in love with the nymph Daphne, who is instead struck by a leaden arrow, capable of ending their love. Apollo, struck by the arrow, falls madly in love with Daphne and runs toward her, but the nymph rejects the god and runs away. To avoid being captured, Daphne asks her father Peneus, eponymous god of the river Peneus, to transform her so she will not have to submit to Apollo. Peneus listens to her request, and when Apollo is about to seize her, Daphne transforms into a laurel tree, a plant that from that moment on becomes sacred to the god. The work displays some similarities to the pictorial style of Giuseppe Zocchi (1711-1767), whom the artist likely drew upon in particular in the depiction of trees and vegetation. The canvas features several paint losses, especially in the lower left corner, and a series of holes (of varying sizes along the edges and in the center) caused by previous nails placed for reinforcement. Framed.

Country Scene with Figures

Oil on canvas. Signed lower left. The scene depicts a group of peasants, both men and women, gathering baskets of flowers, making music and dancing to the sound of bagpipes and tambourines, with some taking the opportunity to flirt. It is therefore a popular country festival, a favorite subject of Barucci, a Roman painter who primarily depicted daily life in the countryside. His almost all-encompassing love for nature—the most authentic, barren, and realistic aspects of the Roman countryside and suburbs—led him to become one of the leading exponents of the rustic style. The brightness and vividness of the colors enhance the festive feel of the scene, underscoring the carefree, serene atmosphere of this moment of folk life. The work is presented in a period frame.

The Holy Family

Engraving on paper. The subject is based on a drawing by Guercino (1591-1666), who dedicated many of his works to this subject. Framed.

Oil painting on canvas. Roman school of the 17th century. The large scene represents the famous episode halfway between real history and legend, told for the first time by Tito Livio in his "Ab urbe condita libri" (the books of the "History of Rome from its foundation"). To populate the newly founded city, Romulus, founder and first king of the city, resorted to a stratagem: he invited the Sabines, who lived in the nearby city of Curi, to the Consualia festival, in honor of the god Neptune, and kidnapped their women. The painting depicts the moment in which the Romans kidnapped the Sabine women, forcibly taking them away from their companions, under the eyes of the king, who remained hidden behind the columns of the temple of the deity, the god Neptune, recognizable by the trident. In the center at the rear is the obelisk, which for the Romans acquired a symbolic meaning as war booty and testimony to imperial strength. The many figures intertwine with each other, chasing each other, overlapping, creating plays of bodies and chromatic effects. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in an antique frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Of a bucolic and serene flavor, the scene set in the countryside on the edge of the village that can be glimpsed on the left, sees a woman and her son who, near a stream, await the shepherd with his flock with a lunch basket . Restored and relined, the painting is presented in an antique 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.

Landscape with Figures

Oil painting on canvas. The large composition proposes a landscape with a large tree in the centre. to surmount with its sparse branches the countryside below, crossed by a stream and animated by various figures of commoners intent on activity or at rest; at the top right stands a fortress, which dominates the valley. Already attributed to Peruzzini from the Marches, the painting can certainly be traced back to his circle, due to the rapid and poorly aggregated pictorial strokes. Antonio Francesco specialized in landscape painting, undergoing the influence of Salvator Rosa and landscape painters such as Pietro Montanini and Pandolfo Reschi, and further influences also came to him from Nordic painters active in Italy, above all from Pieter Mulier known as il Tempesta. In his first works the originality of his painting can already be distinguished given a rapid drafting and an intense and brilliant chromatic timbre. The long artistic bond between Antonio Francesco Peruzzini and Alessandro Magnasco began in the early 1990s, following their meeting in Milan, where Peruzzini had settled; from this period onwards his painting seems to fall apart, through forms that become more dynamic and light, almost fantastic, to finally arrive at a style marked by an ever greater disintegration of the forms of nature and their movement. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.

Oil on canvas, applied on hardboard in the second half of the 1900s. The painting takes up the pictorial ways of the eighteenth century, with a decorative cut. In a peaceful landscape, with an architectural structure on the right and the green valley with the river opening on the left, two figures walk along the path, a woman with her bundle of clothes and the wayfarer with a saddlebag and a stick. The work is presented in a chronicle style.