Still Life Painting with Roses, Pomegranates and a Pearl Necklace

Inlay made with various woods. The inlay depicts the figure of a cellist in eighteenth-century dress. Francesco Ferrario was an accomplished cabinetmaker, influenced by the Neoclassical and Art Nouveau movements. Having trained in drawing at the Brera Academy, after collaborating with the finest artists of the time, he opened a workshop in Milan, first on Via Tenca, and then in 1927 on Corso Sempione. A label on the back of the work places it among the workshops of this latter location. The work is presented in a period frame. A version of this work appears in Bianca Tosatti's monograph, "I Ferrario maestri di tarsia," published in 2000.

Genre Scene at Court

Oil on canvas. Signed lower right. Antonio Zavaga was an Italian painter between the 19th and 20th centuries, specialized in 18th-century style painting, mainly of a gallant and salon setting. The scene of this work is also set in a rich 18th-century style hall: a lady and a gentleman sit at a table playing chess, while the lady-in-waiting brings tea and another gentleman watches amused. The work is presented in a painted frame from the late 19th-early 20th century.

Torrefazione Caffè Pernigotti, 1924

Color lithograph. Signed and dated 1924 top right. Printed by the printer Barabino & Graeve of Genoa. This is an advertising poster for the well-known Pernigotti company of Novi Ligure, today renowned above all for the famous Gianduiotti chocolates, but which began with the production of various confectionery and similar products. Ettore Mazzini, a Genoese portrait and landscape painter, also created various advertising illustrations for important Ligurian companies (we recall the poster for the naval, thermal, electrical and mechanical constructions of the Ansaldo group of Genoa). The poster presented is in good condition, with humidity stains and a cut in the paper. Framed.

Oil on canvas. Central European school of the first half of the 20th century. Unidentified signature on the lower left. In a wide valley under sharp mountain peaks, a small lake opens up, on which some houses overlook and boats sail; some common people's figures are busy with daily activities. Pleasant and serene in the green-blue hues of nature. It is presented in a period frame.

Big New Year's Eve Party 1960

Mixed media on paper. Signed and dated lower right. A humorous and ironic presentation of the menu for the 1960 New Year's Eve party, by the renowned Russian set designer, painter, and illustrator Nicola Benois, who was the chief set designer at Milan's Teatro Alla Scala from 1935. The work includes a photo of a thank-you note that accompanied the piece, addressed to the friend with whom the artist shared the party. Framed work.

Figures of Lovers 1975

Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. The painting belongs to ORAZI's production from the 1970s. In this phase the artist abandoned completely abstract and relief painting and returned to figurative painting, rendered however with simplified and distorted lines. In particular, he created the series called Lignes Circulaires and the one, to which this work belongs, of paintings called Têtes-Paysage, in which he created compositions that depict mysterious human heads or heads of fauns and mythological figures (sometimes accompanied by their insect companions), often couples of lovers kissing: the lines, in these paintings, intertwine to simultaneously form compositions, intertwining bodies, often in an erotic attitude. The work comes from the artist's family's private collection.

Figures, 1975 ca.

Oil on canvas. The painting belongs to ORAZI's production from the 1970s. In this phase the artist abandoned completely abstract and relief painting and returned to figurative painting, rendered however with simplified and distorted lines. In particular, he created the series called Lignes Circulaires and the one, to which this work belongs, of paintings called Têtes-Paysage, in which he created compositions that depict mysterious human heads or those of fauns and mythological figures (sometimes accompanied by their insect companions), often couples of lovers kissing: the lines, in these paintings, intertwine to simultaneously form compositions, intertwining bodies. Here we can perceive some figures, human and animal, probably mythological, engaged in an erotic plot. The work comes from the artist's family's private collection.

Composition, 1933

Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. Partial label of the Galleria Pesaro in Milan on the back. The work belongs to the first period of the French artist ORAZI (a name he wanted written in capital letters), a period still linked to figurative painting, influenced by the historical avant-gardes, in particular by post-impressionism; already in this first phase, research on color has a dominant place in the representation of characters and objects. In this composition, the red and blue colors of the books, the bottle label, the feather, stand out against the soft and homogeneous colors of the other objects, among which the stone mask dominates the left hemifield. The work comes from the artist's family of origin. It is presented in a period frame.

The Shawl Portrait of a Mexican Woman ca. 1950

Oil on canvas. Signed lower right. The French painter ORAZI stayed in Mexico in 1955 and then in 1956-57, which was an exceptionally attractive world for intellectuals and artists of the time. The natural scenery, the customs and traditions of the local population were the themes that converged in the series of paintings called Peintures sur le Mexique, landscapes, compositions and portraits without giving in to the taste for the exotic, with an extremely careful work on the color to represent, without descriptivism, the elements of nature and the figures of men and women, already projected towards abstraction. This pictorial series, composed of 35 pieces, was then exhibited in 1957, upon his return to France, at the Vendôme Gallery in Paris. The painting comes from the private collection of the artist's family.

Fantastic Vision with Figures

Oil on canvas. The signature of the painter Franco Rognoni appears at the bottom right, but the work has not been recognized as authentic by the artist's archive. It also well reflects Rognoni's pictorial style, characterized by figures, both men and houses drawn in black with a few precise strokes, and then filled with color that fades into the background. In the canvas, an elegant male figure appears, leaning impassively and indifferently on the flowered railing of a terrace overlooking a city; below him, at the bottom left, another face emerges (the same man?) wearing a military helmet and placed on a darker, less sunny city background: whether it is the man at war who recalls the time of peace or vice versa, the reference to the alternation in life of peace and war, of serenity and drama is evident. The work is presented in a frame.

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".

The Woodcutter 1980

Oil on glass. On the lower left are the signature and date, accompanied by the artist's symbol, the stylised figurine of a man in a wheelchair. This is a work on glass by the painter Mario Previ, who has lived and painted in a wheelchair since the age of eighteen, due to quadriplegia following a plunge into his Taro river. He said of himself: ‘The world, the passage of time, from this point of view (the wheelchair) teaches you many things. You learn to wake up every morning with a purpose, even if your body is in pain, if every gesture generates suffering and you depend on others, and giving up could be an easy solution. And instead, art, painting, together with the serenity of my world, of friends, give me incredible energy. They have saved me, giving me the strength to live'. In 1974, three years after the accident, inspired by a television programme on Yugoslavian naïve painters, in particular by the works on glass by Mijo Kovacic, Previ began painting and learning the art of glass painting as a self-taught artist, until he became known and appreciated for his paintings. In his naifs, Mario Previ recounts a reality that has almost disappeared, real stories albeit in a fairy-tale tone, revives lost traditions, glimpses of life that belonged to other generations, those of the peasant civilisation (from which he comes), but what emerges most from his visions are the ‘forë’, those that could once be heard in the ‘firossi’, the traditional evenings in the hamlets of Parma dedicated to getting together to tell anecdotes, stories and historical curiosities, often in front of the fireplace, when it was cold and snowing outside. The work is presented in the frame.