PAINTINGS ONLINE | ANCIENT AND CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY

The Months of the Year

Watercolor etchings. Series of twelve loose sheets etched and colored by hand, with caption and name of the relevant month at the bottom, depicting typical scenes linked to each month of the year. Made based on drawings by Giuseppe Zocchi (1711 -1767), the engravings by Giovanni Battista Cecchi (1748 -1819) were printed between 1750 and 1799 by the Florentine publishers Giacomo Moro and Giuseppe Bardi. The series is in good condition, with small moisture stains and minor defects. The engravings are presented in style frames.

Oil painting on canvas. Italian school of the 18th century. portrait of a noblewoman in rich evening dress, with an ermine cloak draped over her shoulders, indicating her high lineage. Relined, the painting is presented in an antique gilded frame.

The Public Garden

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower left. On the back on the frame the title in pencil. The Sienese artist Guido Ferroni, after an impressionist debut, arrived at a painting with intimate tones, characterized by a reduction of the chromatic ranges and an atmosphere of calm village everyday life, linked to the Tuscan tradition. The painting is presented in a contemporary gilded frame.

Sad Village

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower left. On the back on the frame the title in pencil. The Sienese artist Guido Ferroni, after an impressionist debut, arrived at a painting with intimate tones, characterized by a reduction of the chromatic ranges and an atmosphere of calm village everyday life, linked to the Tuscan tradition. The painting is presented in a contemporary gilded frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Italian school of the 17th century. The oval portrait presents the bust of a soldier in armour, severe and grim. The painting, relined, is presented in a carved and gilded frame from the early 1900s.

Ultime Luci

Oil painting on canvas. On the back on the frame the title in pencil and label with the artist's name. The Sienese artist Guido Ferroni, after an impressionist debut, arrived at a painting with intimate tones, characterized by a reduction of the chromatic ranges and an atmosphere of calm village everyday life, linked to the Tuscan tradition. The painting is presented in a contemporary gilded frame.

Mixed media on paper. On the back the artist's stamp with the signature, the title (not deciphered) and the date of the work. Caccioni, an artist who was born, trained and still lives in Bologna, is one of the protagonists of a generation that has now reached a definitive linguistic maturation and occupies an important space within the contemporary artistic panorama. His research mainly uses unusual materials such as acetates, PVC and, more recently, scenic backdrops from nineteenth-century theatrical works, on which he intervenes by painting forms taken from a personal memory and from suggestions coming from different cultures and historical periods. A recurring element in Luca Caccioni's work is writing, a self-significant sign that designs the work and is capable of narrating thoughts; working by superposition, the images are constructed by addition or subtraction of color on the various supports. Work in frame.

Studio 1992

Mixed media on paper. Signed and dated lower, with title. On the back the artist's stamp with the signature, title and date of the work. Caccioni, an artist who was born, trained and still lives in Bologna, is one of the protagonists of a generation that has now reached a definitive linguistic maturation and occupies an important space within the contemporary artistic panorama. His research mainly uses unusual materials such as acetates, PVC and, more recently, scenic backdrops from nineteenth-century theatrical works, on which he intervenes by painting forms taken from a personal memory and from suggestions coming from different cultures and historical periods. A recurring element in Luca Caccioni's work is writing, a self-significant sign that designs the work and is capable of narrating thoughts; working by superposition, the images are constructed by addition or subtraction of color on the various supports. Work in frame.

Gilded bronze bas-reliefs. Signed lower right; number of specimen 25/150 bottom left. The triptych is accompanied by a certification of authenticity from the Seledi Arte Center in Milan. The titles of the three bas-reliefs are shown in the authentication: Fortune, Stallion Fight, The Couple. Francesco Messina's sculpture, so full of echoes of the classical Greco-Roman and Hellenistic heritage,"is characterized", wrote Carlo Carrà, "a simple and great style" and by an "idealistic and classical procedure"capable of give life to forms that remain as "ideal images". The three bronze panels are mounted in a single frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Spanish school of the 19th century. The young woman, who wears a black cape over a lively yellow and white dress, has a rose stuck in one ear and wears elegant embossed pendant earrings; in her hand she holds a black mask, away from her face, from which she also pushes the hood away with the other hand, to reveal herself smiling and perhaps even a little mischievous. A sky of gray clouds opens up in a patch of blue to surround the figure, which stands out brightly. The painting is presented in an early 20th century frame.

Vecchia Ciociara 1910

Pastels on paper. Signed and dated lower right. On the back there is a cartouche with the title and label of the Bolzani Art Gallery in Milan. Antonio Mancini was a realist painter, trained at the Neapolitan school of Morelli and Palizzi and later in Paris. He mainly dedicated himself to portraiture and genre scenes of popular or anecdotal taste, but while in an initial period he was close to nineteenth-century naturalism which led him to portray popular figures permeated with sadness (his street urchins), in a subsequent period he began to experiment different techniques, resorting to vivid flashes of light, placed on the canvas in lumps of violent color and bright flows, even reaching the use of extra-pictorial materials, such as colored glass, and proposing agitated figures, sometimes in imaginative disguises, an expression of his forte mental distress. This drawing, which belongs to the later production, presents the face of an elderly woman, (Ciociara by title), depicted in profile and surrounded by splashes of color that create a nuanced and lively halo. The work is presented in a contemporary frame (with small defects).

Amarici (Etiopian Figures) 1930s

Pencil on paper. Signature, title and location lower right. In the second half of the 1930s, Contardo Barbieri left as a volunteer for the campaign in East Africa. From this period there are some works that propose oriental subjects, such as these characters of the Ethiopian people called Amharic because they were natives of Amhara, a region of central-northern Ethiopia where the city of Dessié is located. In frame.

Oil painting on canvas. The identification of the saint is given by the presence of the large wooden wheel, symbol of the instrument of her martyrdom. Usually the saint is represented with a crown on her head and dressed in royal clothes to underline her princely origins. Instead here we have an atypical depiction of her, with her hair loose, covered only by a large red cloak (the color of blood, therefore of mortal humanity) which falls from her shoulders and forces her to cover her breasts with her hands; her gaze is turned upwards, where the heavens open and an angel descends, holding the palm of martyrdom with one hand and placing a crown of flowers on her head with the other, symbol of her mystical marriage with Christ . It is therefore a representation that sees her at the moment of passage to eternal life, similar to a penitent Magdalene in mystical adoration, who offers herself to Christ without any human recognition. The chromatic choices stand out in the painting, which against a dark and gloomy background bring out the red of the open sky and of the mantle, and the whiteness of the flesh, both of the woman and of the angel. The canvas, already restored and relined, is presented in a worked frame from the late 19th century, with some defects.

The Nine Muses

Tapestry. The word Euterp appears at the bottom right. The enormous grass juice depicts the nine Muses, female Greek divinities, all sisters, as daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, and having the god Apollo as their guide. They represented the supreme ideal of Art, understood as the truth of the "Everything" or the "eternal magnificence of the divine". Initially considered in a generic way as divinities of song and joyous dances, responsible for putting into music and verse stories such as the origin of the world, the birth of gods and men, the exploits of Zeus, and often depicted accompanied by various musical instruments, starting from the Hellenistic era, all singing and musical expressions were associated with them, including sad and funeral ones, and other arts such as theatre, and each of them was associated with a specific genre of art, so that they could be invoked individually to exercise their inspiration and protection. The word "Euterp"refers to the name of one of them, Euterpe, muse of lyric poetry and music, traditionally depicted with a flute; but the name Euterpe etymologically means "She who cheers" who brings joy, and one can therefore think that the choice of this name to title the tapestry refers to the most ancient function of the Muses, those of bringers of joy through art. In this presentation, the muses appear dancing, dressed in veils and flowering branches; in their hands or placed next to them, instruments or other objects symbolizing the art that they inspire appear (both tragic and comic theatrical masks, the pictorial palette, various musical instruments...). The large painting has signs of wear and humidity stains.

Oil painting on canvas. Northern European school of the 18th century. The allegorical scene presents a scantily clad woman sitting on a man's lap, near a table set with a jug, a chalice, a snuffbox and a lit cigar. The two characters are in an attitude of playful complicity, both intent on smoking a long pipe. The background offers a leafy landscape. The figures and objects refer to the material and carnal pleasures of life, smoking, drinking, female company; the rosy and plump characters also recall the pleasure of good food. These subjects were recurrent in Flemish or more generally Nordic painting, which proposed them in an ironic and alluring way. The painting, restored and relined, is presented in a period frame.

Embroidery on cotton fabric. Japan, Meiji period (1868 -1912). The large panel in embroidered cotton fabric offers a naturalistic subject: eagles and other birds are depicted among stylized mountains, and pine and wisteria branches. The embroidery is presented in style frame.

Oil painting on canvas. This is a small copy of Titian's work of the same name, created around 1532 and today preserved in the Louvre Museum. Originally it was thought that the work portrayed Alfonso d'Avalos, marquis of Vasto, bidding farewell to his wife before going to fight the Turks. Instead, it is more likely a prototype of a matrimonial allegory that enjoyed widespread success in Venice. The spouses are represented in the guise of Mars (in armour) and Venus, and are accompanied by Cupid, protector deity of love, who holds a bundle of arrows, by Vesta, goddess of the domestic hearth, crowned with myrtle, symbol of marital fidelity , and by Hymenaeus, divinity of weddings who offers a basket of fruit and flowers. The woman holds a crystal ball, as if she wanted to peer into the future. The melancholic expressions of the protagonists have been read as a reference to the possible death or departure of one of the two spouses. The painting is presented in a contemporary frame.

Oil painting on canvas. The painting portrays the face of an elderly saint, holding a lily in his hand, a symbol of purity, while reading a large book, presumably a sacred text. It is presumably a representation of Saint Joseph: if tradition usually has him represented with Baby Jesus in his arms, starting from the Renaissance Joseph began to also be depicted absorbed in reading a book, in the guise of a "philosopher", or a man who drew the wisdom of knowing how to make right and wise choices from reading sacred texts. The work is presented in a contemporary frame.

Oil on wooden board. The small glimpse represents a wooded glimpse, leafy and shaded, in which various figurines stroll and enjoy themselves. The signature AJ Garnier appears at the bottom center, which refers to the French artist Alfred Jean Garnier (1848 -1908), enameller, painter and engraver. The painting is presented in a period frame.

Portraits of Children, 1930

Photographs retouched with pastels. Signed bottom right. On the back of three of them is the date 11 November 1930. A photographic sequence of the portrait of three children is shown, who slightly change their pose or expression. They are the work of the British photographer Eva Barrett who, after an initial experience as a painter, decided to dedicate herself to photography, thinking that "it was better to be a first-rate photographer than a second-rate [painter]. Having moved to Rome in 1913, she established her laboratory here. Pictorialist, with a small camera, Eva Barrett created her own photographic method that was reminiscent of drawing sketches: she applied a few very light pencil strokes, managing to create subdued images but with particularly dense blacks, thus maintaining the characteristics of photography and portraits. In this way he was very successful and his career took off. Eva Barrett photographed the Italian royal family, the wives and children of foreign ambassadors, as well as received numerous commissions from European royalty in Belgium, Sweden, Greece. The four portraits are presented in style frames.