PAINTINGS ONLINE | ANCIENT AND CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY

Oil painting on canvas. The composition looks at the productions of the 17th century and offers a table richly laden with fruit trays, baskets of cherries, baskets with peaches and bunches of grapes with decorative vine leaves, terrines with seeds, and glasses, surmounted by a curtain and placed on a fabric. Color was used in a highly material manner in some points, to underline for example the stems of grape leaves, or to create reflections of light on the fruit. The painting presented in a style frame.

Oil painting on canvas. The landscape, set in the mountains but with a view of the sea in the background, sees a figure of a commoner in the center and two on the sides, walking on the paths; some farmhouses are scattered on the green slopes. The painting presents several drops of color, especially the upper margin. It is presented in a stylish frame.

Ecija

Oil painting on canvas. Signature and location bottom left. The Spanish painter José Pedraza Ostos dedicated himself mainly to landscape painting, created with an impressionist imprint, and which mainly portrayed glimpses and views of the places in Andalusia he inhabited. Here is a glimpse of the riverside part of the Andalusian town of Ecija, characterized by numerous water mills. The painting is presented in a late 19th century frame.

L'ora delle Messi, 1974

Oil painting on canvas. Signed and dated lower left. The painting, coming from a private collection in Pavia, is published on page 74 of Simona Morani's monograph dedicated to the artist Primo Carena (Bolis editions), with the presentation signed by the art critic Rossana Bossaglia. The hilly landscape well expresses the subdued intimacy associated with the rigorous realism that characterize the pictorial production of the painter from Pavia. In his landscapes Carena tends "to capture the atmospheric reality of the places without indulging in descriptivism... but constantly supported by a lyrical vein, which is the underlying motif of all his production". The work is presented in a period frame

Via di paese, 1941

Oil painting on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. The painting, coming from a private collection in Pavia, is published on page 59 of Simona Morani's monograph dedicated to the artist Primo Carena (Bolis editions), with the presentation signed by the art critic Rossana Bossaglia. The view of the town well expresses the subdued intimacy associated with the rigorous realism that characterize the pictorial production of the painter from Pavia. In his landscapes Carena tends "to capture the atmospheric reality of the places without indulging in descriptivism... but constantly supported by a lyrical vein, which is the underlying motif of all his production". The work is presented in a period frame.

Trees in the Snow, 1978

Oil painting on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. The painting, coming from a private collection in Pavia, is published on page 73 of Simona Morani's monograph dedicated to the artist Primo Carena (Bolis editions), with the presentation signed by the art critic Rossana Bossaglia. The lake landscape well expresses the subdued intimacy associated with the rigorous realism that characterize the pictorial production of the painter from Pavia. In his landscapes Carena tends "to capture the atmospheric reality of the places without indulging in descriptivism... but constantly supported by a lyrical vein, which is the underlying motif of all his production". The work is presented in a style frame. It is published on page 75 of Simona Morani's monograph dedicated to the artist Primo Carena (Bolis editions), with the presentation signed by the art critic Rossana Bossaglia. The landscape well expresses the subdued intimacy associated with the rigorous realism that characterize the pictorial production of the painter from Pavia. In his landscapes Carena tends "to capture the atmospheric reality of the places without indulging in descriptivism... but constantly supported by a lyrical vein, which is the underlying motif of all his production". The work is presented in a period frame.

San Pietro in Verzolo

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower right. The painting, coming from a private collection in Pavia, is published on page 70 of Simona Morani's monograph dedicated to the artist Primo Carena (Bolis editions), with the presentation signed by the art critic Rossana Bossaglia. On the back there is a stamp of participation of the work in the artist's personal exhibition at the Castello Visconteo in Pavia in 1992. The landscape, a stretch of countryside with a backdrop of hills, well expresses the subdued intimacy associated with the rigorous realism that characterizes the production pictorial work by the painter from Pavia. In his landscapes Carena tends "to capture the atmospheric reality of the places without indulging in descriptivism... but constantly supported by a lyrical vein, which is the underlying motif of all his production". The work is presented in a period frame. on page 66 of Simona Morani's monograph dedicated to the artist Primo Carena (Bolis editions), with the presentation signed by the art critic Rossana Bossaglia. On the back there is a stamp of participation of the work in the artist's personal exhibition at the Castello Visconteo in Pavia in 1992. The view of the small village on the outskirts of Pavia, seen from the countryside, well expresses the subdued intimacy associated with the rigorous realism that characterizes the production pictorial work by the painter from Pavia. In his landscapes Carena tends" to capture the atmospheric reality of the places without indulging in descriptivism... but constantly supported by a lyrical vein, which is the underlying motif of all his production". The work is presented in a period frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Neapolitan school of the 17th-18th century. It is a traditional scene of the deposition of Christ from the Cross, with the inert and pale body lowered into the arms of his mother Mary, in turn embraced and supported in her pain by the disciple John, and around, sharing in the mourning, two pious women and two disciples. The scene is characterized by a diagonally descending linearity, which follows the body of Jesus, starting from the pole of the Cross raised on the left and ending with the woman crouched to embrace Jesus' feet on the right. All around, a bare and gray background, which underlines the drama and emptiness that it creates. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in an early 20th century frame.

Philosopher

Oil on cardboard. Signed lower right. Coming from a private collection in Pavia. The painting proposes a subject taken up several times by Primo Carena, both with groups of several characters inserted in a landscape, and with a solitary figure as appears in this painting, which belongs to the production of the 1950s. The man on the beach, in the seated pose leaning with his elbow on a marble capital, and in the cloth resting on his legs, recalls the elderly character sitting in a work by De Chirico, the Salute to the Argonauts, and well underlies the reference to painting metaphysics that the painter from Pavia wanted to express in his figure paintings of the 1950s and 1960s. The work is presented in a frame.

Oil painting on canvas. At the bottom left there is a signature traced very lightly and not decipherable. There is a plaque on the frame attributing the work to Jean-Baptiste François Pater (1695-1736), which is considered inconsistent. The landscape develops near the mouth of a river into the sea; on the left there is the landing directly to a group of houses; on the right a rowboat is leaving the tree-lined shore, with two scantily clad figures. Relined, the painting is presented in a late 19th century frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Roman school of the 17th century. The landscape, large and airy, pervaded by a "classical", timeless atmosphere, fits into the classicizing current of ideal views taken from the Roman countryside, introduced to Rome with great success during the 17th century following the example of Carracci, Domenico, Albani and the French Poussin, Dughet, Lorrain, and continued into the following century with artists such as Andrea Locatelli. This type of landscape paintings aimed to exalt the principles of beauty, reason, order and measure typical of the classical world, to celebrate the value of history, the trust inherited from the ancients in the virtues of man and his possibilities. In the nature of these landscapes, which is not abandoned to chaos, but is composed, orderly, not disturbed by violent or disorderly elements, human figures are placed, dressed in the old style as in this painting, in which a couple dressed in classic tunics she converses amiably sitting (or rather, half-reclining almost as if they were on a triclinium) in the middle of a shady and green countryside, near a quiet river; in the distance you can glimpse the buildings of a city and your gaze is then lost in the orderly and peaceful continuity of the rolling hills of Lazio. The painting, restored and relined, is presented in a period frame.

Sestante 14 1989

Color screenprint on paper. Signed in pencil lower right, numbered n. IV/XV bottom left. It is accompanied by photo authentication from the "Il borghetto" art house in Milan. The work was part of the "Sestante" series, consisting of 16 different serigraphs. In 1982 Alberto Burri created Sestante, a large cycle of seventeen cellotexes and an iron sculpture, which was exhibited from May to September of the following year in the space of the former Giudecca shipyards in Venice. The evocation of the old nautical instrument, which was used by travelers to establish the position of a given point with respect to the horizon, is a tribute to the maritime destiny of Venice. The paintings are Burri's umpteenth challenge: in their combinations the shapes and colors of the "sextant" create an inexhaustible cycle where there is not the slightest repetition. Within the same painting, or in the juxtaposition of one to the other, the kaleidoscope of shapes allows square and curvilinear structures to coexist, together with large chromatic backgrounds and dense visual patterns. In 1989 the artist proposed the cycle again as a graphic work, creating the "Sestante" series. The art historian Bruno Corà said that "in Burri's case, speaking of graphics does not mean speaking of a lesser production compared to paintings, but only of a different and parallel artistic modality, in conception and execution, in short such as to be able to be included with absolute importance in the production of the great painter, alongside all his other revolutionary innovative pronouncements". The work is presented in a frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Roman school of the 17th century. The large scene, in Flemish style, probably the work of a Nordic author who settled in Rome, is occupied by a large architectural complex, made up of the remains of classical temples, damaged, unsafe and invaded by weeds, located near a lake. Among the vestiges of a now dead era there are numerous colorful and animated figurines of characters from everyday life contemporary with the production of the painting. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a strip frame.

Oil painting on canvas. The great scene with a realist subject is set in a thick forest where, near a spring, a small family has stopped for a rest break: leaving the cart with their belongings (without a horse, therefore pulled by hand!), a man , a woman and a large group of children, are resting, eating, cooling off at the source or playing. From the top left a ray of sunlight filters through the trees, which illuminates the group of figures located at the bottom centre, protagonists of the scene. The painting is presented in a gilded frame from the late 19th - early 20th century.

Oil painting on canvas. A delicate composition of flowers is placed inside a sort of wooden cradle, with mushrooms and fruit on the ground; the background is external, but poorly defined by various stains. The work, on the first canvas, is also presented in a beautiful frame from the early 18th century, in lime wood carved with a leafy wreath held together by ribbons, and gilded with gouache.

The Organ-Grinder

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower right. Trace of a date, not readable. The Cuneo artist Ottavio Steffanini had a life in constant movement, divided between Italy, Europe, America (in particular Venezuela). A restless and unpredictable artist, he concentrated his painting above all on female figures, portrayed with placid sensuality and an opulence influenced by the Spanish masters with whom he studied. But in his production there is no shortage of other subjects, united by an incessant exaltation of life, of nature. Here, however, a male figure is proposed, a half-length portrait of an accordion player, dignified and proud in his pose and gaze. The work is presented in a period frame.

Oil painting on canvas. In the composition, a woman with her child, in ancient clothes and flanked by an ox, kneeling on steep ground, stretch their arms upwards in an act of supplication or perhaps contemplation: it could be an interpretation of Mary who accompanies Baby Jesus to contemplate his destiny, with the ox which refers to the birth and simple pastoral life of the Holy Family. Restored and relined, the painting shows several traces of color loss. It is presented in a stylish frame.

Oil painting on canvas. The painting offers a half-length portrait of a young man who, in deshabillé, is lighting his pipe by drawing fire with a stick from the candle placed in front of him, on the table where a sword is also placed: perhaps it is a young knight in a moment of rest. It is precisely the candle, the only source of light in the scene, which suggests that the artist looked to the production of Georges De La Tour (1593 -1652), the French painter of the Caravaggio style who established himself for his "nocturnal" scenes, characterized by figures, usually low-ranking people rather than historical models or high-ranking figures, illuminated by the light of a candle, to create a special atmosphere of intimacy. The painting, restored and relined, is presented in a period frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Southern Italian school of the 17th-18th centuries. The scene, full of characters, sees the figure of a leader standing at the centre, well defined in the details of the armour, the crest, as well as the anatomy: he is benevolently accompanying with the movement of his arms a kneeling man who, together to his companion, he is paying homage to an emperor, however indicating with his outstretched hand the group of six children, held back on the right by soldiers. The emperor has risen from the throne, on the left, and goes to meet the prostrate couple, but he too seems almost in an attitude of reverence towards the central leader. The scene seems to refer to a historical episode of clemency of a leader, who due to his age, features and type of armour, could be Alexander the Great, a character who, however, is difficult to match with the other figure crowned with laurel, who descends from the throne in the sumptuous palace . It is therefore not possible to specifically identify the episode (historical or legendary?) of reference. Furthermore, the compositional richness of the scene is appreciated, with numerous well-detailed figures and bright colors to underline its dynamism. The work, restored and relined, is presented in an antique frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Northern European school of the 18th century. Caratacus was a Celtic king of the Catuvellauni tribe of Britons and leader of the anti-Roman resistance and famous as a freedom fighter. For eight years he resisted the Roman invasion of Britain starting in 43 AD. For eight years he was the most wanted man in the Roman Empire, hunted relentlessly, from fight to fight, from fortress to fortress, in the mountains of Wales, until he was not betrayed and handed over to the Romans in 51 AD by Cartimandua, queen of the Yorkshire Brigands, to whom he had turned for help. Defeated, he was brought in chains to Rome with his entire family: brought before the emperor, the British king spoke with such wisdom and pride (with the speech reported by Tacitus in his Annales) that Claudius, struck by his words, granted the grace to him, his wife and brothers, allowing them to spend the rest of their days in Rome. The painting presents the moment of Caratacus' peroration, at the center of the scene in chains, fervently pleading his case before the emperor: he is sitting on his throne, flanked by his wife and surrounded by senators and soldiers. The painting, restored and relined at the end of the 19th century, has slight damage.