Portrait of a Young Woman, Oil on Canvas, 19th Century

Maria Dolente

Marble bas-relief. Engraved signature along the left margin. Born in Cannobbio (on Lake Maggiore), Giulio Branca was introduced to the art by the Cannobio sculptor Bergonzoli, and later attended G. Strazza's school of nude drawing and sculpture at the Brera Academy. Born in Cannobio on 13 December 1850 to Ludovico, he was introduced to art by the Cannobio sculptor Bergonzoli, and attended the school of the nude and G. Strazza's school of sculpture at the Brera Academy. He made about four hundred sculptures, including memorials, funerary monuments and portrait busts. Branca also took part, following a competition, in the completion of the high wall of the cathedral of Como, which had remained unfinished for centuries, sculpting several figures in white marble for the façade and the altar between 1897 and 1900. The work presented here is a bas-relief showing a half-bust of the grieving Madonna flanked by two pious women. It is presented in a coeval wooden frame from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

Pastoral Scenes

Oil on panel. Decorated with pastoral scenes on a monochromatic light green background, with couples, children, farmers depicted during moments of rest and conversation, in the guise of the models from the 18th century. Probably wooden panels from the doors of furniture, the paintings have been recently mounted on wooden frames. They present some paint losses and spots, especially where the background is.

Oil painting on canvas. Italian school of the eighteenth century. Rich composition with basin full of variegated flowers, fruit bowl with peaches, a cut pumpkin and a goldfinch that picks grains from the bunch of grapes placed on the table. It is part of that vast production of composite still lifes which in the eighteenth century, deprived of any allegorical or symbolic meaning, was purely aimed at a decorative purpose; he took up multiple, composite, lively inanimate objects, often flanked by a living element, an animal like the goldfinch in this work, which maintained the link with life and everyday life. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.