PAINTINGS OF THE '900

Arab Dancer, Late 1940s

Oil on canvas. Signed lower right. Sales label from an Argentine gallery on the back. Dario Mecatti, a Florentine painter, traveled extensively in Africa, capturing scenes of life there, such as this belly dancer performing in the streets accompanied by drummers and fife players. Mecatti later moved to Brazil, where he lived until his death, making a name for himself with genre scenes and landscapes, and exhibiting his works in various galleries in São Paulo. The work is presented in a mid-20th-century frame.

Oil on canvas. French school, late 19th-early 20th century. With a nod to Impressionism in his choice of interplay of light and nuanced colors, the painter depicts a hillside meadow where groups of families are relaxing and children are playing. The scene is divided into two distinct sections, sky and earth, by following the sloping ridge of the large flowery meadow, with tufts of wildflowers in the foreground. The painting has some minor damage in the upper right corner. It is presented in an early 20th-century frame.

Glimpse of a Village with a Fruit Seller

Oil on canvas. Signed lower right. View of a neighborhood crossed by a small bridge over a canal; central to the street is the figure of a fruit and vegetable vendor, sadly awaiting the arrival of customers on the threshold. Paolo Baroni produced both landscape and folk paintings, as well as drawings, caricatures, and decorative works. Traces of repairs are visible on the back of the canvas. It is presented in a contemporary frame.

Forest with Cows and Peasant Woman

Oil on canvas. Signed lower left. Belgian artist Henri Houben, who also traveled and worked in Italy, specialized in outdoor scenes of rural life, featuring figures in traditional costume. The painting presented here is dominated by the landscape: cows graze in a leafy forest, while a peasant woman approaches them with a milk bucket. The canvas shows slight paint loss. It is presented in a mid-20th-century gilded frame.

Joseph and the Wife of Potiphar

Oil on canvas. The artist's signature and studio address (Via Goito 16, Florence) are on the back. This work is a copy of a painting by Giovanni Bilivert (1585-1644, a Florentine painter known for his Baroque works inspired by biblical themes), housed in Palazzo Barberini in Rome. Rich in detail and movement, the painting has a dramatic impact and was widely reproduced in the centuries following Bilivert's production. The work presented here is an early work by the Florentine painter Carlo Facchinetti, still rooted in the 19th-century historicism movement, while his later work shifted toward popular subjects, creating many scenes of family life in rural interiors. It depicts the biblical episode in which the wife of the Egyptian dignitary Potiphar unsuccessfully attempts to seduce the servant Joseph. It is presented in a period frame.

Winter Landscape

Oil on canvas. At the bottom left is the signature E. Kettermann MCHN, indicating the city of Munich where the artist lived and worked. Kettemann specialized in Alpine landscapes, especially the Bavarian mountains, depicted predominantly snow-capped or, with their jagged peaks, against white plains crossed by frozen streams. The painting shows traces of restoration on the back. Presented in a gilded frame from the 1950s.

Ploughing in Bugey

Oil on canvas. Signed lower right. On the back is a cartouche from the Société des Beaux-Arts de Lyon with the title "La bourage en Bugey." Terraire, who lived and worked for many years in Lyon, specialized in mountain landscapes in the southeastern regions of France, including Bugey (a historical and natural region in the Ain department, between Lyon and Geneva). His landscapes feature recurring figures of animals, grazing herds, and farmers going about their work. The work has some old patches visible on the back. It is presented in a contemporary frame, with several missing parts. Cows grazing in Saint Jean de Sixt, in Haute-Savoie, near La Clusaz, a subject in which the artist specialized. His broad, colorful touch is perfectly suited to the sumptuous landscapes he depicts, preferably choosing motifs with a slightly high horizon line to best convey the majesty and grandeur of our Alpine panoramas.

Grand Canal 1948

Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower left. Label on the back, showing participation in the "Natale dell'Arte" exhibition, with title and date. The works of the Lombard Chiarista painter Vittorio Viviani are characterized by brushstrokes that rigorously delineate forms and by the predominant use of white with light variations. Framed.

Padova, il Bacchiglione, 1942

Oil on canvas. Signed lower center. On the back is a label from participation in the XXII Venice Biennale in 1942, and another from the 1943 exhibition of contemporary art, also in Venice, both bearing the title. Fioravante Seibezzi belongs to the large group of post-Impressionist artists of the Burano school. He primarily painted views of the lagoon city and other cities in the Veneto region. Presented here is a view of the Bacchiglione River, one of the main rivers in the Veneto region, which runs through a large stretch of the Po Valley, passing through two major cities, Vicenza and Padua. Presented in a contemporary frame.

Saint Margaret Molina

Oil on panel. Signed lower right G. Viviani. View of the small church of Molina, overlooking Lake Como. In a contemporary frame.

Glimpses of Milan

Three oil paintings, two on the front and back of a panel, and the third on canvas board. All signed at the bottom. They are presented in book-hinged frames, with a view of Milan Cathedral on the outside of the panel, and two views of tenement houses on the inside. Giuseppe Viviani, an artist from Pisa, primarily established himself as an engraver, a craft he taught for a long time at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. He also devoted himself to painting, seeking above all to express emotions through color, so much so that he called them the "colors of the soul".

Mountain Landscape

Oil on panel. Signed lower right. Trained in the school of Tallone, Moretti Foggia was primarily a landscape painter, creating veristic views characterized by a very bright and textured palette, primarily depicting his native Ossola Valley or the Alpine peaks. Mountain huts and figures of shepherds with flocks are also recurring features in his landscapes.

The Involuntary Confession

Oil on canvas. This is a copy of a painting by Benjamin Vautier from 1881, sold at a Sotheby's auction in 1998. The Swiss artist specialized in popular genre scenes: in this painting, two young women walking along the path leading out of the little church behind them exchange secrets, unaware of the priest sitting reading his breviary on the bench behind the tree! The work is presented in a period frame.

Vase of Carnations

Oil on canvas. Signed lower right. The Pisan artist was best known as an engraver (he taught engraving at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence) but also devoted himself to painting, which he achieved with remarkable originality and extraordinary poetic depth, using colors that he himself defined as "the colors of the soul". Although he favored popular subjects, flowers were also often the subject of his works, so much so that a section of a recent (2023) retrospective dedicated to him in Pisa was titled "The Colors and Flowers of the Soul". The work is presented in a contemporary frame.

Fishing Boats

Color lithographs. Signed in pencil. The French painter and engraver Guinegault created numerous views and landscapes, both of Paris and the coasts of northern France, often featuring fishermen. The two lithographs are presented in bamboo frames from the 1960s.

Fake fresco tear. Emulating an ancient fresco, the face of Saint Anthony the Abbot is depicted here, recognizable by several of his iconographic features: he is dressed in a friar's habit with a scapular, holding a staff to which is attached the bell used by friars and hermits to announce their arrival for almsgiving, and with his right hand in blessing, from which emerges a tongue of fire, a symbol of both illness, punishment, and the dominion of the underworld by Good. The work is framed by a listel.

Oil on canvas. Early 1900s. This high-quality painting was created by an anonymous artist inspired by the works of Vittorio Reggianini (1858-1938), who enjoyed enormous success with his interior and living room scenes, depicting women or children engaged in everyday, often recreational, pursuits, like these two ladies enjoying tea and chatting amiably. The painting is presented in a contemporary frame.

Mixed technique on paper. Initials AS at lower right. A bouquet of roses stands out against a blue background. The painting is presented in a contemporary ebonized frame, decorated with gilded carvings.

Seashore with Figures

Watercolor on cardboard. Signed lower right. Paolo Sala, born and trained in Milan, distinguished himself as one of the most important landscape painters of his time, as well as a view painter of the many Italian and foreign cities in which he worked. He favored watercolors, but also painted extensively in oils. He uses quick, broad, overlapping brushstrokes, in an Impressionist style, playing with color and light to create evocative atmospheres, as in this maritime view of figures on a beach busy sifting sand. The painting is presented in a period frame.

Christ the Worker ca. 1950

Oil on canvas. Signed lower right F. Venzo SJ (Societas Jesu, the motto of the Jesuits). This is a work by the Jesuit friar Mario Venzo, a Venetian painter who, after painting during his bohemian youth in Paris, devoted himself to monastic life in 1940, while continuing to paint. This work depicts a young worker in the foreground, inside a modern artisan's workshop, his head surrounded by light: this is likely a modern projection of the young Jesus at work in his father's workshop. The style of the work harks back to Venzo's pictorial period before 1953, the year after which his work became more vibrant with bright, vivid colors and a more stylized figure, while still often focusing on sacred subjects. The work is presented in a frame.

Harvest Scene 1959

Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. The Brescian artist Eliodoro Coccoli "was not by vocation an easel painter" but rather established himself primarily as an interior and exterior decorator, creating secular frescoes for various Lombard villas and sacred subjects for numerous churches. His canvases are very few, and mostly date from before 1922, the year in which his decorative production greatly expanded, but numerous sketches and several preparatory canvases for frescoes remain. This grape harvest scene may also be part of this type of production, although it is defined and detailed in its details. Coccoli's style cannot be traced to any particular movement; indeed, he is considered an expert in eclecticism: he selects the figurative repertoire best suited to the client's needs, adapting his style to the subject and the architectural characteristics of the location. Furthermore, it demonstrates a refined, at times virtuosic, technical expertise. The work is presented in a frame.

Oil on canvas. Unidentified signature lower right. An elegant and refined composition of roses in delicate shades of pink and white, arranged in a gilded metal basin, sits on a small table along with pomegranates, a symbol of fertility and prosperity, an embossed silver plate, and a casket containing a pearl necklace. The background, in a single, earthy, nuanced color, highlights the light effects of the flowers and objects.

Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. Crescent-shaped, originally intended as a panel above a door, the canvas features a pleasant yet melancholic composition of loose roses arranged on a raised painted surface. The work is presented in a period frame.

Horse in a 1950s Landscape

Marker on rice paper, glued to cardboard. Signed at the bottom. Below is a dedication from the artist (Greetings dear - Aligi). The work is accompanied by a photo certificate from the Sassu Foundation, archive number PNV49. The protagonist of this drawing is once again the horse, the artist's favorite animal. He was fascinated by the energy and dynamic strength of these animals, which represented life itself and freedom, which Sassu expressed through the twisting of their figures. Sassu's works, which include painting, sculpture, and ceramics, showcase the power of horses in scenes of racing, battles, or immersed in nature, often with an emphasis on dynamism and plastic energy. Framed work.