Still Life with Flowers Oil on Canvas - Italy XIX Century

Oil on canvas. Lombard school of the nineteenth century. The vase composition presents a bunch of variegated flowers in delicate pastel colors, flanked by a thin and elegant blue glass vase containing a single iris; the vases rest on an elegant wooden console with mirror that frames the composition. The unsigned work is very close to the manner of Luigi Scrosati (1814-1869), the Milanese painter who distinguished himself for the depictions of floral still lifes. The painting is presented in a beautiful coeval gilded frame, in wood and tablet modeled with friezes.

Resting Herd

Oil on canvas, Signed at the bottom right. Born in Milan in 1819, Salvatore Mazza graduated in law at the behest of his father but, as he began to frequent student and patriotic circles, he became acquainted with numerous artists engaged on the anti-Austrian front, which introduced him to painting and prompted him to abandon his law studies. In 1842 he exhibited for the first time at Brera, presenting five genre paintings; following in the footsteps of Domenico Induno, Mazza initially proposed painting with realistic and modern subjects, mainly contemporary history and popular scenes. In the same years he took an active part in the anti-Hapsburg uprisings, culminating in the Five Days of Milan, which he recounted in his autobiographical account, which he himself illustrated. After the revolutionary interlude, he wrote and illustrated a historical novel (Il memoriale di fra' Luca d'Avellino. Fantasie artistiche e letterarie, 1850), contributing to the contemporary debate on the convenience of accompanying literary texts with a figurative apparatus. The literary part of the novel was panned by the critics, but it met with the approval of critics and the public alike for the 800 or so illustrations that accompanied it. In the meantime, Mazza resumed painting, once again focusing on historical and literary subjects, but in 1856 he won the Mylius Prize with the painting "A Herd at Rest" (initially kept at the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan but now lost). This recognition led him to decide to limit his painting to genre scenes in favour of landscapes and paintings of small and medium-sized animals, which were the subject of growing interest on the part of the Ambrosian entrepreneurial bourgeoisie. Throughout the period of his artistic maturity, Mazza combined painting with an intense activity as a draughtsman and cartoonist for satirical newspapers and took an active part in Milanese artistic life, as an academic at the Brera Academy and as an art critic. Salvatore Mazza died in 1886 in Milan. The work presented here is part of Mazza's pastoral production and shows the same subject with which he won the Brera prize. The scene is set in an impassable mountain landscape, beneath snow-capped peaks of a decidedly Alpine conformation. The central part is occupied by a group of men and animals (cows and goats) who, during a pause in their walk, are huddled together in search of warmth; crouched down, the shepherd is lighting the bivouac fire, flanked by a large child. In the centre, on the horse, there is an evocative, almost sacred maternity: a woman is holding a newborn child in her arms, clothed in clothes whose choice of colours - red and blue - rather explicitly recalls the traditional depiction of the Madonna, and stand out chromatically from the rest of the scene, dominated by earthy brown tones and shades of grey, which then turn to the off-white of the snow and clouds. There is therefore a religious reference in a very rural and secular scene. The painting, which comes from a private collection in Milan, has been restored and reworked. It comes in a late 19th-century gilded frame.

Siege Scene

Oil on canvas. Outside the fortifications of a city, a commander, surrounded by his soldiers, is about to light the fuse of the cannon. The army defends the citadel outside the walls and the soldiers scan the horizon looking downwards: this leads us to place the scene on the fortifications of a city, in particular those of Genoa, that rise on the mountains behind it and from which the Genoese defended the city from attacks from the sea; the Genoa setting is also supported by the banner that flies over the walls, the Saint George Cross (red cross on a white background), flag of the Republic of Genoa. The shape of the armor, weapons and clothing would refer to the siege of Genoa in 1522. It is therefore the nineteenth-century representation of a historical episode, which is then part of that pictorial production widespread in Italy in the nineteenth century, inspired by the new historical novel popular in literature. On the back of the frame there is the name G. Boni, together with a number that refers to participation in an official exhibition. Giovanni Boni was a pupil of the Brera Academy, in particular a follower of Giuseppe Sogni, an artist who was among the first to favour historical painting in its innovative romantic declinations. Not much is known about Boni, neither from a biographical point of view nor from his production. Of his certain attribution we know only the Nude of Man (painted Academy) with which he won the first prize for the Scuola del Nudo in Brera in 1852. The piece expresses the figures and the pathos of the scene with expressive efficiency; the characters in the foreground are very well characterized in their poses, expressions, in the details of the clothes and weapons, while the other figures fade into the background, suggesting the presence of a large army. The painting, still on the first canvas, shows small widespread losses of colour. It is presented in a frame in style.

Oil on canvas. Anonymous author, probably English (on the back of the canvas there is a stamp of the London origin of the canvas itself), the large painting portrays two figures, a man and a girl, who are walking away from the city in the background, with its minarets and domes; the girl holds a long palm branch on a shoulder, while she supports the man with her other shoulder and her hand, guiding him along their way. The colours stand out in the painting, the darker colours of the clothes and the skin of the figures contrast the light ones of the city and the clear and bright sky. The painting is presented in a coeval frame decorated with gilded shells.

Oil on canvas. Inside a large woodland landscape, animated by figures of commoners, there is a squad of soldiers of the National Guard who are escorting two men under arrest in the centre. The scene refers to episodes that happened frequently during the Renaissance, like the historically documented and portrayed arrest of Ugo Bassi and of captain Livraghi, patriots in support of Garibaldi. Even if it is an historical subject, the portrayal leaves room mostly for the landscape element, which fills the whole scene and is portrayed in great detail. There is a signature "L. Corsi" bottom right: a painter from Florence called Luisa Corsi (born in 1830) is well known, but she is mostly well known for her miniatures. On the back of the painting there is an antique label of an inventory. In an antique frame from the 19th century.

The Scribano

Oil on cardboard. Signed at the bottom right. Beautiful painting by the painter from Bergamo (Italy). Romualdo Locatelli studied at the Carrara Academy and then, driven by a strong passion for trips, he traveled a lot in Italy and abroad in Africa and Orient. During the World War II he moved to Manila in the Philippines, where he stayed until his death. His works belong to public and private collection all around the world, especially in Orient where he probably made his better works and is still known as the "famous Romualdo". His natal city Bergamo dedicated him many exhibition. The painting depicts an oriental subject, a character of the Oriental popular life typical of the places the artist visited. The face of the depicted person was cleaned because it had extremely pronounced facial features compared to the shade given by the hat. The features were inappropriate considering the man's race (before and after cleaning in the pictures). Presented in frame. 20th century.

Oil on slate. Painted on a thick slab of slate, the scene presents the dramatic moment in which Mary, surrounded by a group of pious women, weeps over the body of her Son taken down from the Cross: she abandons herself dramatically in the arms of the two women behind her, while at the her womb rests the inert body of the Son, on whose hand a third woman weeps; above, a group of angels who look out from the open skies, from which the divine Light springs, participate in the lamentation. Mary is the only figure who wears brightly colored clothes, which contrast with the waxy color of the body of Christ resting on her lap, while the other women wear clothes in dull colors, just as neutral are the bodies of the little angels. The figures are placed on a dark background, in which the opening of the sepulcher can hardly be seen: the chromatic effect is rendered thanks also to the pictorial base used, the slate, a stone also known as the "blackboard", as the most important slate quarries are located near the town of Lavagna in Liguria. The pictorial modality recalls the works of Pietro Mera known as the Flemish, a painter originally from Brussels who lived between the 16th and 17th centuries: active for a long time in Venice, working from 1570 to 1603 in the service of Cardinal d'Este, Mera made extensive use slate as a pictorial support for some of his works. The material with its characteristic dark color allowed the artist to create intense luministic contrasts and to emphasize the figures, depicted with a bright chromatic range and illuminated by brilliant touches of light. In good condition, the painting is presented in an antique frame.

Oil on canvas. Northern Italian school of the 17th-18th century. In a large, rather barren hilly landscape, which widens and fades to the right, there is a high rock, shaped like an arch, under which there is Saint Jerome penitent, depicted in the act of prayer and adoration of the Cross. In accordance with the canons of 17th-18th century painting, the figure of the Saint, adapted to the iconography in his clothes and attitude, is however inserted in an unsuitable landscape, close to that of the painter who drew on the landscape reality known to him. . The painting, restored and relined, is presented in a period frame.

Oil on canvas. Lombard school of the late 17th-early 18th century. The rich composition offers a large bouquet of colorful flowers in an embossed vase, next to two large pumpkins and mixed fruit (grapes and peaches): with different intensities of color, the various naturalistic elements emerge from the completely dark background, creating effects of lights and shadows. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in an early 20th century frame.

Oil on canvas. Lombard school of the late 17th-early 18th century. The rich composition offers a large bouquet of colorful flowers in an embossed vase, next to a bowl full of porcini mushrooms and a bunch of grapes: with different intensities of color, the various naturalistic elements emerge from the completely dark background, creating effects of lights and shadows. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in an early 20th century frame.

Oil on canvas. Venetian school of the seventeenth-eighteenth century. On the back there is a label from the Di Rosa Art Gallery, which attributes the work to the "Venetian School of 1600". The great scene, rich in figures and very animated in the intertwining and superimposition of the bodies, tells the episode of the Gospel of John in which a woman caught in adultery is brought before Jesus by scribes and Pharisees to find out his opinion about the his sentence to be stoned. Jesus, while writing on the ground with his finger, urges his interlocutors to be merciful with the phrase "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone", thus saving the woman from the death sentence and leaving her free to go, with the exhortation not to sin anymore. The subject has been extensively re-proposed in art, with different views on the characters. In this painting, the woman is in a central position, but all the other characters around her make the gaze converge downwards, towards the hand with which Jesus, crouched, is writing on the ground; both the face and the right arm of the woman are practically parallel to those of Christ, as if they followed and conformed to the direction that Jesus indicates to her. In the other numerous figures curiosity dominates, the intent to understand, the question that Jesus raises with his question, represented in multiple expressive variants of both faces and bodies; curious is the detail of the lenses - the glasses of the priest whose head comes out behind the woman and the magnifying glass of the crouched figure on the left in the background - which two figures use to "see better" what is happening. The pictorial and interpretative modalities of the painting recall the Venetian production close to Girolamo Brusaferro (1677 - 1745), the Venetian artist whose painting represents the median way between the great tradition of late Baroque painting similar to Luca Giordano and the innovative coloristic sensitivity typical of eighteenth-century grace. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a coeval frame, in carved, stuccoed and lacquered wood.

Oil on canvas. Northern Italian school of the 17th-18th century. On the back this label of the Art Gallery with the indication "Venetian School of 1600". The Gospel episode of the deposition of Christ from the Cross is depicted. The body of Jesus, which stands out white for the pallor of death but also as a symbol of his purity, stands out in the center among the other figures, the only one inert among the other characters. His arms still open while he is detached from the Cross, constitute a link between the two figures of Mary and John standing below him, and the sky. Around several figures that chorally create movement, intertwining, shapes and colors. The restored and relined work is presented in a coeval frame, in carved, stuccoed and lacquered wood.