SELEZIONE ARTE

Jefte and His Daughter

Oil on canvas. The painting depicts Jephthah and his daughter, two biblical characters from the Old Testament. The girl is depicted in profile, dressed in the attire of a 17th-century Venetian lady: a low-cut dress, cinched at the waist with a golden belt and flowing sleeves; her blond hair is gathered and braided with strings of pearls; and dangling earrings adorn her ears. With one hand, she raises a cloth to her face to dry her tears, while with the other, she holds her father's hand. Jephthah, on the other hand, wears armor, a heavy red cloak draped over his right arm, and seems to be pointing out of the painting; his expression is one of pain. The feelings expressed by the protagonists—desperation bordering on madness in the character in question, meek resignation in the weeping girl, who holds the man's hand as if to console him—well illustrate the tragic story of the warrior returned victorious but forced by a vow to sacrifice his own daughter. According to the analysis of art historian Dr. Ludovica Trezzani, whose expert opinion is attached, the painting under examination here is a replica, varied in size and slightly closer framing, of a composition by Girolamo Forabosco, also known as "Medoro and Angelica"because the painting's subject has always been sought within the context of Ariosto's poem. Dr. Trezzani retraces in her analysis the sequence of hypotheses that led to the work's interpretation of the Old Testament subject. The expert defines the painting as "precious in its materiality and skillful in many passages but not so successful in others, and therefore probably executed in Forabosco's workshop, partly with his direct intervention but with the extensive responsibility of one or more assistants, as was the practice in workshops of the time". The painting shows signs of previous restoration and relining. It is presented in a frame.

Clash between Military and Guerrillas in Spain

Oil on canvas. Accompanied by an expertise by Professor Fernando Mazzocca. The painting belongs to a series of works by the Veronese painter Giuseppe Canella set in Spain, following the artist's stay in that country between 1820 and 1823, which led him to stop in various Spanish cities, the last being Madrid where he frequented the court. From his travels around Europe, Canella brought back numerous drawings from which he took inspiration for the works later reworked in his studio in Milan, often then presented at the Exhibitions of the Brera Academy. In this work the reference is to a dramatic period in the history of Spain, marked by the constitutional uprisings against King Ferdinand VII of Bourbon, which provoked French intervention in support of the monarchy against the rebels. In reality, the historical event is almost a pretext for Canella to recall the harshness and charm of the mountainous landscape, which acts as a monumental backdrop to the clash between the army and the rebels, small and almost indistinct figures. The painting, in excellent condition, presents only very slight losses of color, already restored. It is presented in a contemporary frame.

A Cherry Seller Being Courted by Two Musicians ca. 1720

Oil on canvas. The painting is accompanied by an expertise by the art historian Dr. Giuseppe Sava. The protagonist of the open-air market scene is a cherry seller, wearing a showy straw hat and sitting next to a basket of these fruits placed on a wooden bench, next to a stone on which the steelyard rests. With a smiling, almost winking look, turned towards the viewer, she is accepting the advances of the man who, behind her, is placing a hand on her shoulder, with a lascivious look, while two musicians on the left improvise a small concert. The composite and cheerful group harks back to the production of Giacomo Francesco Cipper, known as Todeschini (1664 -1736), a painter of Austrian origins but Lombard in training and pictorial style, who was a "singer of peasants, street vendors intent on their daily occupations or pastimes", a specialist in market scenes, open-air concerts, card players, scenes of humble daily life created with laughing caricatural forcing and a search for comic effect. Cipper drew this narrative style from the Danish painter known as Monsù Bernardo, who was active for a long time in Italy between Bergamo and Milan: in particular, from him came the predilection for everyday stories and humble characters, as well as the impertinent nature of such characters, who seek the attention of the observer by staring at him. In this painting too, the female protagonist fixes her mischievous gaze on the observer, smiling with complicity and irony at the courtship game in which the three men make her the protagonist, implying a "market" that is no longer just that of cherries. In his expertise, Dr. Sava underlines the stylistic and typological relations of this painting with other characters by Cipper, in support of the attribution; the stylistic evolution in the formal and technical aspects of his works is also explained - the colors that lighten, with an evident predilection for ochre, hazelnut, sage green, among which powder blue creeps in; the milky backgrounds, the softer luminosity and the less plastic chiaroscuro -, an evolution that allows us to place the work in his production of the early 18th century. The painting has been restored and relined. It is presented in an adapted antique frame.

French school. Mid 18th century

Oil on wooden board. French School. Mid-18th century. The scene depicts a party in a park enclosed by walls with arched openings that open onto the countryside, and decorated on the right with an amphora on a small column and in the center, behind the figures, with a gushing fountain, with statues of cherubs and shells. Two couples of richly dressed ladies and gentlemen are gallantly entertaining each other, surrounded by servants; one of the men is playing the violin, crouched in front of his lady who, flanked by the damsel, follows the melody on the score held by the black man at her side, while two musicians accompany the playing with the flute and a mandolin; the other couple, in an attitude of intimate dialogue, listens on the left, while on the right the hunter returning from the hunt also observes the scene. The painting is presented in a period frame.

Penitent Magdalene, ca. 1750

Oil on canvas. The figure of Mary Magdalene is represented here, as per tradition, with long red hair; with a gesture of painful dedication she fixes her gaze on the crucifix, which she holds with her left hand pressed against her right arm, which in turn is folded in a sign of collected penitence. The whole body is rendered with a splendid counter-twist, which has the effect of making the viewer feel the tension of the moment experienced by the saint. On her left is visible the skull, her traditional attribute, and in the background one can glimpse the outline of the cave in which she is placed. The part of the body emerges, thanks to the intense luminosity of the arms, connected to the red ochre shades of the hair and face, thus also accentuating the erotic character of the scene, recalling the exuberant painting of Rubens, which had a great influence on Crespi's work. This captivating and delightful figure of the Magdalene follows the widespread trend in the 17th and 18th centuries to depict saints with an undertone of human sensuality, revealing the patrons' preference for sacred themes imbued with profane elements. The painting, restored and relined, is presented in a late 19th-early 20th century frame.

The Penitent Magdalene and St. John the Baptist

Oil on slate. Two examples of oil painting on stone are proposed here, a pictorial genre that was particularly popular in the Venetian Republic between the 16th and 17th centuries, in its form of oil painting on blackboard or touchstone. The choice of such a dark stone as a background is not only linked to practical reasons (the proximity of the mines of Brescia and Val Brembana), but, as our two works clearly demonstrate, the emergence of the figures from the dark background responds to the light also full to the new needs of the painting of the time, which in the climate of the Counter-Reformation, tended to express not only the idealized existential certainties of the full Renaissance, but also the anxieties and the opening up to new phases, already tending with Tintoretto towards greater attention to reality and luministic contrasts, to then flow overwhelmingly into seventeenth-century research strongly focused on the contrasting combination of light and shadow. The two works presented here, well within the production of the Venetian area of ​​the first decades of the 17th century, propose two figures of saints, both hermits, placed on a dark, barely visible naturalistic background. The figure of Magdalene emerges from the darkness, leaning to follow the curve of the stone support; she is depicted looking questioningly towards the darkness, as if in a listening attitude, her left hand raised and the other resting on the remarkably shortened "memento mori". In front of her a scourge and the jar of ointment. Painted en pendant, Saint John the Baptist is represented as a young man, with a lamb at his feet, in his hand the processional cross with the banner "ecce agnus dei", while with his right hand he draws from the water source, recalling the episode that will see Jesus Christ baptized. In both paintings the figures stand out in a strong and incisive way thanks to the black that characterizes the slate plaque on which they are depicted. The two paintings, in an oval format, are presented in black wooden frames, from the late 19th century.