Antonio Gianlisi, attributable to - Still Life with carpets, jewels, fruit and a mirror

Oil on canvas. Northern Italian school of the 17th-18th century. In a large, rather barren hilly landscape, which widens and fades to the right, there is a high rock, shaped like an arch, under which there is Saint Jerome penitent, depicted in the act of prayer and adoration of the Cross. In accordance with the canons of 17th-18th century painting, the figure of the Saint, adapted to the iconography in his clothes and attitude, is however inserted in an unsuitable landscape, close to that of the painter who drew on the landscape reality known to him. . The painting, restored and relined, is presented in a period frame.

Oil on canvas. Lombard school of the late 17th-early 18th century. The rich composition offers a large bouquet of colorful flowers in an embossed vase, next to two large pumpkins and mixed fruit (grapes and peaches): with different intensities of color, the various naturalistic elements emerge from the completely dark background, creating effects of lights and shadows. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in an early 20th century frame.

Oil on canvas. Lombard school of the late 17th-early 18th century. The rich composition offers a large bouquet of colorful flowers in an embossed vase, next to a bowl full of porcini mushrooms and a bunch of grapes: with different intensities of color, the various naturalistic elements emerge from the completely dark background, creating effects of lights and shadows. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in an early 20th century frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Northern Italian school of the early 18th century. The scene tells an episode in the love story between the queen of Egypt and the Roman triumvir Antonio: Cleopatra, to demonstrate her wealth and seduce the handsome general, prepares a sumptuous banquet, during which she chooses a pearl of inestimable value and he dissolves it in vinegar, then offering the drink, considered a powerful aphrodisiac, to Antonio. This beautiful painting represents the beautiful half-length queen, seductive in the play of nudity covered with precious jewels and draped in rich fabrics, while she is about to immerse a large pearl in a chalice: on her left the face of Antonio who stares at her astonished, fixed in a gesture of the hands that expresses the amazement at being the beneficiary of this extreme act, on the right some handmaids, admired and amazed. The whiteness of Cleopatra's complexion stands out in the center, while the other figures fade into the shadows on the sides, thus the apotheosis of beauty. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.

Oil on canvas. Venetian school of the seventeenth-eighteenth century. On the back there is a label from the Di Rosa Art Gallery, which attributes the work to the "Venetian School of 1600". The great scene, rich in figures and very animated in the intertwining and superimposition of the bodies, tells the episode of the Gospel of John in which a woman caught in adultery is brought before Jesus by scribes and Pharisees to find out his opinion about the his sentence to be stoned. Jesus, while writing on the ground with his finger, urges his interlocutors to be merciful with the phrase "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone", thus saving the woman from the death sentence and leaving her free to go, with the exhortation not to sin anymore. The subject has been extensively re-proposed in art, with different views on the characters. In this painting, the woman is in a central position, but all the other characters around her make the gaze converge downwards, towards the hand with which Jesus, crouched, is writing on the ground; both the face and the right arm of the woman are practically parallel to those of Christ, as if they followed and conformed to the direction that Jesus indicates to her. In the other numerous figures curiosity dominates, the intent to understand, the question that Jesus raises with his question, represented in multiple expressive variants of both faces and bodies; curious is the detail of the lenses - the glasses of the priest whose head comes out behind the woman and the magnifying glass of the crouched figure on the left in the background - which two figures use to "see better" what is happening. The pictorial and interpretative modalities of the painting recall the Venetian production close to Girolamo Brusaferro (1677 - 1745), the Venetian artist whose painting represents the median way between the great tradition of late Baroque painting similar to Luca Giordano and the innovative coloristic sensitivity typical of eighteenth-century grace. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a coeval frame, in carved, stuccoed and lacquered wood.

Oil on canvas. Northern Italian school of the 17th-18th century. On the back this label of the Art Gallery with the indication "Venetian School of 1600". The Gospel episode of the deposition of Christ from the Cross is depicted. The body of Jesus, which stands out white for the pallor of death but also as a symbol of his purity, stands out in the center among the other figures, the only one inert among the other characters. His arms still open while he is detached from the Cross, constitute a link between the two figures of Mary and John standing below him, and the sky. Around several figures that chorally create movement, intertwining, shapes and colors. The restored and relined work is presented in a coeval frame, in carved, stuccoed and lacquered wood.

Oil on canvas. The two large canvases present the figures of two Greek divinities, Venus and Mercury, painted in the manner of statues inserted in a loggia, in almost monochrome tones to recall marble, and on a dark background. Mercury is recognizable by the staff with the coiled snake, called the Staff of Asclepius, one of the symbols of the god; Venus is traditionally depicted in a pose that flaunts her nudity, that is, her beauty. The two panels are conceived as complementary parts of an interior design. Restored and relined, they are framed in simple wooden strips.

Oil on canvas. Italian school of the seventeenth century. The large scene depicts the Three Fates, or the three deities of Roman mythology, called Moire in Greek mythology, who presided over the destiny of man: the first spun the thread of life, the second dispensed destinies, assigning one to each individual, establishing them even the duration, the third, the inexorable, cut the thread of life at the appointed moment. Their decisions were immutable: not even the gods could change them. Sometimes depicted as three elderly women, others as young, they appear in this painting with female features of various stages of life: in the center the goddess who spins is of adult age, on the right there is a young goddess who decides the length of the thread, or the duration of life, on the left an old woman who is preparing to cut the thread with a pincer. In reality, from this work it is clear how the three divinities worked in symbiosis and how the three tasks were actually shared, because all three together represented Fate, the Destiny of man. The canvas, previously restored and relined, needs further restoration due to small diffuse drops of color and a patina of dirt. It is presented in a contemporary relacquered frame.

Oil on the table. Northern European school of the 17th century. The scene depicts an episode in the life of Scipio narrated by Tito Livio and Valerio Massimo. Publius Cornelius Scipio, later known as Scipio the African, in 209 BC. during the Spanish campaign, after the capture of Cartagena he received as a personal gift a beautiful virgin, who was in the group of hostages. But he, listening to the pleas of his family, respected her by sending her back to her parents and fiancé, with the only recommendation that her betrothed work for peace between Rome and Carthage. In the representation Scipio is in the center, seated on his throne, and turns to the left, to the suppliant parents of the girl, while with a merciful gesture, he indicates to them to take back his daughter, standing on the right, flanked by her boyfriend. All around, soldiers and followers of the king. The scene is full of figures, bright and colorful, and underlines the positivity of the king, a central and powerful character, but capable of meekness and clemency. The restored painting has been reinforced on the back with wooden strips. It is presented in a stylish frame.

Oil on canvas. In the beautiful composition you can see, resting on an inlaid wooden sideboard, a basket full of cherries, some of which are scattered on the top, and a plate full of red currants, mixed with leaves and a few cherry blossoms. A goldfinch rests on the handle of the basket; to frame the composition, on the right a large bouquet of multicolored flowers in a vase, on the left a red curtain. The bright colors of the fruits, the flowers and the curtain stand out, while the support cabinet blends into the dark background, as does the little bird, distinguishable from the dark background only by the white plumage on the wings and the red outline of the eyes. The work is part of the large 17th century Emilian production of this highly decorative type of subject. The painting, restored and relined, has a marked crack and drops of color along the edges.

Oil on canvas. John the Baptist was represented, wrapped in the traditional animal skin, seated on a rock contemplating the crucifix; at the bottom right, a source of water, a baptismal symbol, gushes out of the rock. His traditional iconographic signs then appear, witnesses of his missionary peculiarities, although the pose of the saint is atypical, more contemplative than that of a preacher. The pictorial modalities are close to the Spanish school of derivation to Murillo, the greatest Spanish artist of the religious baroque, who permeated his figures with an intense psychological interpretation. The painting, restored and relined, is presented in an ancient coeval frame, with small shortcomings.