Antique Painting Saint Joachim and the Angel Oil on Canvas XVI Century

Copy from Simon Vouet

Oil on canvas. This is a beautiful copy of the famous painting by Simon Vouet (1590-1649) created between 1618 and 1620, and located in a chapel of the church of San Francesco a Ripa in Rome. Created by Vouet during his stay in Rome, the work shows a significant Caravaggesque influence, both in its chromatic and lighting choices, as well as in the poses of the figures. These characteristics are faithfully found in this copy. The palette is rich in colors (blue, orange, and obviously red) that materialize in draperies painted with great brushwork, but there is also an abundance of white cloths, which are everywhere to provide light and create a visual impact. The details are rich: the elaborate hairstyle of the figure seen from behind and his bare foot in the foreground (but not dirty, like those of Merisi); the white vase on the floor contrasts with the large copper basin; The lace of the shirt and turban of the woman on the right, as well as her left hand (a typical Caravaggio pose) extended openly toward the viewer, give the scene a sense of depth. The painting was restored and relined in the late 19th century, and mounted on a stretcher from that period. It is presented in a late 19th-century frame.

Oil on panel. Venetian school, mid-16th century. The crucified Christ at the center of the scene is surrounded by four saints identified by their iconographic symbols: on the left, Saint Francis and Saint Jerome; on the right, Saint Sebastian and Saint Roch. In the background is a view of a city, likely Rome, indicating the connection with the Church as an institution. A paper label with a number is on the back (from a 19th-century private collection). The painting is presented in a frame.

Figures with Autumnal Still Life

Oil painting on canvas. The H.Sanders signature is present on the barrel at the bottom left. The scene, set outdoors in a street of a Flemish city, with the canal in the background on the left, sees in the foreground a vegetable seller behind her stall, which is set up with a varied composition of winter vegetables, a composed still life from cauliflowers, cabbage, carrots, corn on the cob; next to the woman, a passer-by carrying a harpoon on his shoulder is offering her some fish, evidently the fruit of his catch that he wants to sell. The setting brings to mind Amsterdam, the city where the Dutch painter Hercules (or Herkules) Sanders was born and lived, who established himself mainly as a portraitist, but of whom an interior genre scene is known, currently at the Detroit Institute of Arts, dated 1647 and entitled "Woman cleaning fish", whose female figure closely resembles the seller of the work presented here. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.

Oil on canvas, mounted on a reinforced canvas. 17th-century Northern Italian school. The scene is taken from the biblical book of Numbers: because the Israelites, fleeing Egypt and wandering through the desert, complained to God about the lack of food and water, God sent poisonous snakes to exterminate them, but also ordered Moses to raise a bronze serpent on a pole, so that anyone bitten by it would be healed. Symbolically, this gesture, turning one's gaze toward the serpent, implied an act of conversion and faith in God. In this representation, the pole is more specifically shaped like a cross, anticipating the salvation that will come to humanity through the Crucified and Risen Christ, who frees humanity from the sin symbolized by the serpent. Moses is at the center of the scene, pointing to the pole with the serpent, flanked by his brother Aaron; around the men and women of Israel, some overwhelmed by serpents, others already kneeling as supplicants asking for God's forgiveness. The work is presented in a frame composed of late 19th-century elements, adapted.

Oil on canvas. The painting is inspired by Titian's famous "Homage to Venus" which was widely copied and reinterpreted during the 17th century. In the version presented here, there is no reference to Venus, but rather appears to be a celebration of Spring: a large group of Cupids invades the lush countryside, weaving wreaths and filling baskets and basins, petting animals (goats, sheep, dogs), and, in the background, fishing in the river. The painting has been restored and relined in the past. It is presented in a specially adapted antique frame.

Oil on canvas. Emilian School, second half of the 17th century. Rose of Lima, a Peruvian nun (and currently the patron saint of Peru) of the Third Dominican Order, who lived between the 17th and 18th centuries, is depicted according to her traditional iconography, dressed in the Dominican habit, while in prayer welcoming the mystical vision of the Baby Jesus, who, according to tradition, makes her his bride by offering her a crown of roses; here the roses are placed on the stone in front of the girl. On the back of the work is a cartouche identifying the previous owners as the Bezzo Guazzone family, residents of the Salabue Castle in Ponzone Monferrato (Alessandria). The cartouche records the painting's entrustment for participation in an exhibition until October 4, 1926. The painting has previously been relined. It is presented in a contemporary frame.

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.

Winter Landscape with Figures

Oil on canvas. In a wintry countryside landscape, sprinkled with snow, on the bare, dark, arid nature, a path winds through completely bare trees that leads to the village, and some wayfarers pass along it, while on the side some woodcutters are at work. A sky full of dark clouds looms over everything, although on the left there is a patch of blue. The style harks back to the production of Marco Ricci, a painter from Belluno who made a name for himself for his undoubted talent for naturalistic and architectural representation. His landscapes, still of a distinctly seventeenth-century taste, are already lit up by powerful and emotional lights, by dry and twisted trees, rocks and towers, cumulus clouds that suddenly break apart into vague flashes of blue, a complex repertoire that transfigures nature into a dramatic and restless representation. He became a point of reference for several other artists contemporary to him, who took up his style, as in this work. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.

Love and Psyche

Oil painting on canvas. Northern Italian school of the 17th century. The scene refers, with some variations but very close in size, to a part of the large fresco entitled "Banchetto degli dei" in the Chamber of Cupid (or Chamber of Cupid and Psyche) of Palazzo Té in Mantua, a large representation of over nine meters made by Giulio Romano with his workshop in the 16th century. The proposed scene (which in Mantua is located to the right of the great banquet) sees Cupid and Psyche lying on a triclinium, while a small winged figure crowns them with laurel and two nymphs wash Cupid's hand; in the background on the right a group of satyrs is sacrificing a goat to the altar of a deity, while in the centre, in the distance, a city is burning. The banquet of the gods is the final moment of the myth of the two lovers who, after many trials and vicissitudes, obtain Venus'permission to get married. The work, restored and relined, is presented in an antique frame.

Oil on canvas. The large scene is set outside a rocky fortress and features a garrison of soldiers preparing for battle: in the foreground on the left, near a tree, the group of commanders on horseback observe the work and give orders, while the troops arm the cannons on the ramparts, prepare rudimentary lances and sharpen their sidearms. The colors are clear and dull, with shades of gray that pass from the clear sky with clouds to the rocky fortress, to get lost in the ground, turning to a sandy beige; only a few of the officers' uniforms stand out, breaking the chromatic uniformity. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a golden frame from the early 1900s.

Oil on canvas. The woman depicted in the scene can be traced back to Porzia, the Roman noblewoman and wife of Brutus, who lived in the 1st century BC: according to legend, she committed suicide by swallowing a burning coal, and it is in this fatal moment that she is depicted here. The painting is very close to the pictorial methods of the painting of the same name from the Cignani school, attributed to his pupil Marcantonio Franceschini and preserved at Palazzo Tozzoni in Imola. The figure of Porzia, placed in an interior with classical elements, occupies the entire field of the scene, and is depicted sitting in front of the burning brazier, in the act of putting the coal in her mouth; her expression reveals the suffering of the gesture she is making, but also her determination, her gaze looking into the distance already places her far from the life she is leaving. The painting has been restored and relined. It is presented in an antique 18th century frame.

Landscape with Shepherds and Herds

Oil on canvas. Signed lower right. In a splendid classical landscape, with green hills overlooking a watercourse, a stream in the foreground that then becomes a wide river in the distance, are inserted the figures of a shepherd and a shepherdess who lead their flock to water. The pastoral scenes of this type characterized the production of the Dutch artist Michiel Carree, who was court painter to the King of Prussia in the first decades of the 18th century. The painting, in the first canvas, is presented in a contemporary golden frame, in carved and gilded wood.