Antique Japanese Tapestry Silk Meiji Period XIX-XX Century

Oil on canvas. Second half of the 19th century. Intense close-up portrait of a man, probably North African, which belongs to the artistic period defined as orientalist, that is, in that artistic production that was fascinated by the oriental world, following the numerous trips in vogue in the 19th century to the warm and exotic lands of the countries of Western Asia. The painting is presented in a period frame.

Confidences

Watercolor on paper. Artist's monogram top left. Tranquillo Cremona, after an initial period close to romantic painting, from 1870 onwards distanced himself from the influences of Francesco Hayez and adopted a painting style with indefinite contours, developing the concept of "macchia scapigliata" together with his friend Daniele Ranzoni: after an initial intervention with brushes, he refined the works with his fingers to blend, using all his fingers to make his paintings as vaporous as possible. This technique (which cost him his life due to lead poisoning caused by repeated contact with the skin of the colors) was compared by Camillo Boito to the views of the magic lantern, when the right focus of the lens had not yet been found: the image is already distinguishable, but is immersed in an almost gaseous vapor. The subjects of Tranquillo Cremona's works were always human figures, present in the historical-literary scenes of the romantic period, as in the portraits and genre scenes of the scapigliata phase; his subjects were taken from everyday life, in its simplicity and spontaneous immediacy, like these three female figures depicted in a moment of confidential and intimate conversation between friends. The work is presented in a late 19th century frame.

Oil on canvas. French school of the late 18th - early 19th century. Portrait of a gentleman in elegant bourgeois dress. The canvas has slight tears and requires cleaning. It is presented in a gilded 19th century frame.

Oil on canvas, applied to panel. French School. Signed F. Barthélemy and dated 1876 lower left. The scene is in oriental taste and setting, and suggests the domestic and intellectual education of a young girl (the reference, albeit secular, to the Education of the Virgin is evident!): a young girl, standing at the center of the scene, while intent on embroidery, listens to the teaching of her mother, who is holding some written sheets in her hands; the elderly woman is dressed in oriental dress and reclining on a triclinium, while, behind her, a servant moves the curtain, revealing the background of an imposing classical temple. The scene is characterized by carefully crafted and richly detailed settings, such as the bunch of flowers on the embroidery table, the fabric covering the triclinium on which the mother is reclining; the intimate and domestic atmosphere is underlined by the earthy colours of the palace walls, on which the bright colours of the figures stand out, well lit by the light bursting from outside. The painting is presented in a period 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 painting on canvas. Signed lower left. Inside a rural kitchen, a peasant family allows themselves a moment of celebration: the father plays the mandolin, listened to by the little girl who seems to want to dance, assisted by her mother, and by the other women of the house, smiling as they carry out their domestic tasks. The production of the Neapolitan painter Giuseppe Giardiello always looked to the folklore of Neapolitan rural and peasant life, painting, with intimate and delicate tones, both scenes of domestic life and landscape views animated by figures. The work is presented in a contemporary frame.

Jesus on the Road to Calvary

Oil on canvas. The work is a replica of the one executed by Pierre Mignard and donated to Louis XIV, now preserved in the Louvre Museum in Paris. The dramatic scene is set just outside the walls of Jerusalem; a procession of people accompanies Jesus on his climb to Calvary, which can be glimpsed in the background on the right, with the crosses of the two thieves already erected. Instead, the Cross of Christ is carried by Simon of Cyrene, forced by the guards after Jesus' umpteenth fall, who is rudely urged with a whip to get up. In front of Christ walk the two thieves tied up, accompanied by some servants; on the left is the group of pious women who accompany and support Mary, broken-hearted with grief. In contrast to this group, there is another group of women of the people on the right, who watch in an attitude of pious compassion, averting the gaze of their children from the terrible spectacle. The landscape in the background is harsh and barren, under a sky that is filling with grey and dark clouds. The work was restored and relined in the mid-1900s, and mounted on a new frame. It is presented in a period frame.

Oil on canvas. Northern Italian school of the 17th - 18th century. The widely known biblical scene of the quarrel between the two brothers, sons of Adam and Eve, which then leads to the fratricide of Abel at the hands of Cain, is depicted here within an Italian landscape, rich in vegetation, with the complement of two particular fires. In fact, on the sides of the two figures, which occupy the center of the scene, there are two sacrificial pyres with a burning fire: however, while from Abel's, on the left, a high smoke rises which is sucked up by the clouds above it, to indicate that God has accepted this sacrifice, instead Cain's fire is low, almost crushed on the embers, and no smoke rises from it, a sign that God rejects it. Even the red color of Abel's tunic is intended to emphasize his sacrificial value, his martyrdom. The painting needs cleaning. In a period frame.

Oil on canvas. In an Italian landscape, the scene is centered on a group of commoners who are trying to get away from the besieged and burned city, carrying their goods on the cart and leading the small flock; a small group of enemy soldiers, however, has chased them and is trying to stop them, with their weapons drawn. On the back of the frame there is a pencil inscription that attributes the work to Jan Both (1618 -1652), a Dutch painter known above all as the author of Italian landscapes, often animated by figures. The painting has been restored and relined in the past. It currently requires cleaning. It is presented in a period frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Central European school of the eighteenth century. Under a blue sky, a large, rather barren landscape is depicted, with the edge of a wood opening onto a rocky valley, with a river flowing between the rocks and snow-capped peaks in the background; in the foreground, scattered, some figures of shepherds with their flocks. On the stretcher at the back of the work, a cartouche refers to Poussin, the artist representing seventeenth-century classicism whose pictorial methods inspired the author of the painting. The painting, relined, is presented in a period frame.

Rest on the Flight into Egypt

Oil painting on canvas. XVIII -XIX century. The sacred theme in this scene takes on a familiar connotation, full of very earthly tenderness and intimacy: in an almost exotic context, which evokes an oasis in the desert for palm trees and a spring of water in a barren and hilly landscape. bare, Joseph and Mary sit to rest during their flight to Egypt, to escape the persecution of Herod; the mother tenderly holds baby Jesus on her knees, looks at him tenderly and swaddles him, while Joseph observes them pleased and relaxed. The whole scene is characterized by the dominance of brown-ocher colors, from which only Maria's dress differs, in her traditional blue and red colors; in the background, a clear sky in the colors of a dawn that has just dawned, with shades of pink. The canvas was applied on a new frame from the mid-1900s and placed in a frame from the same period, which has some shortcomings.

Oil on canvas. Intense and high quality, the painting depicts a monarch of the royal house of Scotland. Around the portrait, in a painted oval frame, there are some writings: the name Rober(t) appears at the top left, the title Rex at the bottom left and the abbreviation Scot, which stands for Scotorum, on the right; the writing at the top right is not identifiable, but it seems to be an acronym. The man portrayed wears a hat and a coat adorned with ermine fur, which is considered the noblest fur, reserved for royalty. He wears a golden pendant around his neck, which depicts two leaves with the fruit of the thistle, which, in heraldry, symbolizes Scotland. The writing and the pendant therefore refer to a Robert of Scotland, probably from the dynasty that reigned in the fourteenth century. The portrait was however executed in the romantic nineteenth-century period, probably using some ancient engravings for inspiration. Restored and relined, it is presented in a frame in style.