Portrait of a Young Woman Oil on Canvas - Italy XIX Century

'A Tame Skye' 1876

Oil on canvas. Signed B. Swinton Spooner and dated 1876 lower right. On the back further signature, date and title "A tame Skye" ("a meek Skye") This is the landscape view of a coastal corner of the Isle of Skye, located along the north west coast of Scotland, in the Hebridean archipelago , and famous for its rugged landscapes, quaint fishing villages and medieval castles. The painting is presented in a frame.

Oil on canvas. The scene, still with a romantic taste due to the pink atmospheres, sees a stream that flows with waterfalls and jumps between the rocks of an impervious landscape, dominated by rocky peaks; on the shore, a shepherd boy sitting on the boulder, contemplating the landscape. The painting has some color losses. It is presented in a coeval redorated frame.

Oil on canvas. The romantic scene for the rosy atmospheres offers a glimpse of mountains on whose slopes a lake opens up, with a village lying on the shore: the typology of the landscape recalls Lake Como. Small drops of color. The painting is presented in a coeval redorated frame.

Oil on canvas. The nice scene is set outside the gate of a garden (a park?) Surrounded by a high crumbling wall: a girl plays on the ground, surrounded by scratching hens. On the back there is a label with an old attribution to Achille Formis Befani (1830-1906), a Neapolitan artist who then worked in Milan, conforming to the Lombard school; he dealt with both landscape and figure painting. The painting is presented in a coeval gilt frame.

Oil on canvas. Italian school. With a romantic atmosphere, the landscape with the hill full of trees, the stream crossed by a bridge and the young villager carrying the amphora of water on her head, is surmounted by a sky mottled of different colors, with darker clouds that fade away into the pink of the dawning sky. On the first canvas, the painting shows small drops in colour. It is presented in a stylish frame.

Oil on canvas. The portrait of the gentlewoman, sober in black, is proposed in an unusual exterior, which sees her sitting on a bare boulder, with the background of pink peaks and blue sky, to give a romantic atmosphere. The painting is presented in a gilded frame from the early 1900s.

Glimpse of Paestum

Gouache on cardboard. Signed lower right. The Neapolitan painter Antonio Coppola attended courses at the Institute of Fine Arts in Naples. He was a good temperer and executed with ease and with marine effect and views of Naples, with a production sought above all by foreigners and tourists. The foreshortening shows the countryside around the temple of Paestum, with a hay cart and its farmer in the foreground. It is presented in a gilded frame from the end of the 19th century.

In the park, 1909

Oil painting on canvas. Signature, date and location in Milan in the lower left corner. The Milanese artist Carlo Balestrini preferred two subjects in his impressionist production: views of Milan and its popular suburbs, and horses, depicted both in the countryside and in city parks. Also in this work there is a glimpse of a park in autumn, with figures of characters out for a walk. The canvas has a small central hole and dirt marks.

Oil on canvas. Not signed. On the back there is a generical attribution to Gerolamo Induno. Realistic rapresentation of a poor young man sitting in the garden and eating sup; the expressive rendering of the child's sadness and resignation is intense, underlined also by the dull colours. It comes in a contemporary gilded frame, placed in another frame.

Episodes from the Life of John the Baptist

Five drawings mixed technique on paper, depicting scenes from the life of St. John the Baptist, as recounted in the Gospels (The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, the birth, the Baptism of Jesus, beheading, Salome presents the severed head to Herod). The back label specifies that the designs are copied from the cycle of the Chapel of St. John the Baptist in the famous Basilica of San Lorenzo in Genoa. In the frame.

Pencil, charcoal and white lead on paper. Signed (Amalia Bianchi?) and dated at the bottom right. Very effective is the use of different pigments that creates a play of chiaroscuri that underlines the figure. The portrait come in a 19th century wooden frame with leather leafy and floral inserts; it has missing parts and color drops.

Summer

Oil on plywood. It is signed on the bottom left corner; further signature and title on the rear of the painting. Mario Bettinelli was an artist born in Bergamo; he was well known as a portrayist and as a caricaturist. He portrayed important figures in a witty and humorous manner. A part of his work has allegorical subjects, he usually recurred to feminine figures. After WWII his focus shifted on lombard landscapes. The painting is presented in a coeval frame.