Vintage 1960s Wall Mirror Exotic Wood Frame Glass Italy

Three Drinkers and an Angel 1942

Mixed media on board. Signed lower right. On the back further signature, title and date. Beppe Porcheddu, an important Italian illustrator and ceramist, was also a painter. In his evolutionary artistic path "it would seem that the artist has poured "the illustrator" into the painter and vice versa "the painter has prevailed in the illustration". From his first production, alongside his aptitude for the grotesque, Porcheddu showed a natural inclination for what was defined as a "perfect trio of symbols of a world (the medieval one) that expressed itself through metaphors like no other previous civilization" . In this panel, that tendency towards the grotesque is well expressed in the figures of the three drinkers, presented with crude features, clear lines and marked angles, while the figure of the angel appears evanescent, blurred, framed in the single light that comes from the open door.

Oil painting on canvas. The biblical scene depicts the Holy Family with Mary sitting on the donkey, newborn Jesus in her arms and Joseph pulling the animal, as they flee from Nazareth, headed for Egypt, to escape Herod's persecution. Some little angels hover above them. The gazes of the angels, Joseph and Mary tenderly converge on the Child. In the background a Nordic landscape. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Central Italian school of the 17th century. According to the iconographic tradition, also in this painting the guardian angel is depicted as a winged young man who accompanies a child along a stretch of road, indicating the sky as the destination of the journey. The winged figure stands out and dominates the scene, lively in its colours, powerful in the physical strength it emanates, albeit sweet in its delicately protective attitude towards the child, whose small figure is enveloped in the limbs of its guardian. The scene is enclosed within a garland of bright and colorful flowers, which give color to the figures, otherwise placed in a dark and almost monochrome landscape. The depiction of characters, mainly religious, enclosed in floral frames had great development especially in Rome, linked to names such as Giovanni Stanchi (1608 -1675), rather than Mario Nuzzi known as Mario de' Fiori (1603 -1673), and others. The painting, restored and relined, is presented in a strip frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Central European school of the 18th century. A river landscape is proposed near a village, with a small bridge in the center that crosses the watercourse, and populated by numerous popular figures, with typically Northern European characteristics due to their fleshy features and cunning and curious expressions. They are engaged in everyday activities related to fishing: in the center a man exposes his catch to a couple, guaranteeing, through the gesture of his arm, its fresh origin; in front of him a child overturns a tub of fish and water snakes while another fisherman, further back, also sells his goods. Two other men, standing in the water, haul in their nets; A shepherdess passes over the bridge with her child and goat. w sitting in the foreground on the right, a woman observes the scene. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Unsigned, there is a label on the back with attribution to Ferdinand II Wagner (1847 -1927), a German painter appreciated for his decorative painting. The large painting offers, according to an ancient taste, a glimpse of a city market in a Nordic village, with figures in 17th century Flemish clothes. The central part is occupied by a stall full of fruit and vegetables: on the left the seller, sitting with the steelyard hanging above her, is bargaining with the couple of buyers on the right, intent on testing the quality of the products. The painting is presented in a period frame.

The Woodcutter 1980

Oil on glass. On the lower left are the signature and date, accompanied by the artist's symbol, the stylised figurine of a man in a wheelchair. This is a work on glass by the painter Mario Previ, who has lived and painted in a wheelchair since the age of eighteen, due to quadriplegia following a plunge into his Taro river. He said of himself: ‘The world, the passage of time, from this point of view (the wheelchair) teaches you many things. You learn to wake up every morning with a purpose, even if your body is in pain, if every gesture generates suffering and you depend on others, and giving up could be an easy solution. And instead, art, painting, together with the serenity of my world, of friends, give me incredible energy. They have saved me, giving me the strength to live'. In 1974, three years after the accident, inspired by a television programme on Yugoslavian naïve painters, in particular by the works on glass by Mijo Kovacic, Previ began painting and learning the art of glass painting as a self-taught artist, until he became known and appreciated for his paintings. In his naifs, Mario Previ recounts a reality that has almost disappeared, real stories albeit in a fairy-tale tone, revives lost traditions, glimpses of life that belonged to other generations, those of the peasant civilisation (from which he comes), but what emerges most from his visions are the ‘forë’, those that could once be heard in the ‘firossi’, the traditional evenings in the hamlets of Parma dedicated to getting together to tell anecdotes, stories and historical curiosities, often in front of the fireplace, when it was cold and snowing outside. The work is presented in the frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Bottom right signed Borella and dated 1894. It is probably Rafael Borella (1874 -1953), a painter born and trained in Milan but then moved to Uruguay. His first Italian production includes Venetian and Val d'Aosta landscapes. This painting, which offers a mountain view, with meadows crossed by a stream near which a fisherman sits. The scene could therefore be a youthful production by Borella, suited to him in terms of subject and style. The work is presented in a contemporary frame.

Watercolor on paper. Signature L. Rossi at the bottom left. It is a quick portrait, in pencil and then watercoloured, of two young ladies in winter walking clothes, shot in almost full length. The drawing is presented in a gilded and carved frame from the late 19th century, which has several defects.

Watercolor on paper. Signature L. Rossi at the bottom left. They are two young ladies in winter walking clothes, shot in almost full length. The drawing is presented in a gilded and carved frame from the late 19th century, which has several defects and traces of previous restoration

Oil painting on canvas. Venetian school of the late 18th century. The large painting tells the evangelical episode of the meeting between Saint Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist, and Mary, waiting for Jesus, but inserted in a larger choral scene: it is placed on a large staircase, probably that of the temple in where Zechariah, Elizabeth's husband, was a priest, and a crowd of figures, and is animated by a crowd of figures, among which several women with children and families stand out. Detail in the foreground on the left is the figure with a little boy attached to his legs, who looks towards the viewer, indicating with a broad gesture of his arm the central event, the meeting between the two holy women. The colors stand out, which according to the Venetian pictorial tradition, are founding elements of the scenes, which underline the figures and fade into the different three-dimensional planes. Relined and restored, the canvas has a slight crack on the left. It is presented in a gilded frame from the late 19th century.

Oil painting on canvas. The large painting recalls the pictorial methods of the 17th century but is from a later period, and was created on a canvas applied to an older one. The scene tells the biblical episode (taken from the Book of Kings) widely narrated pictorially, depicting the bath of Bathsheba, the wife of General Uriah, in the service of King David. According to the biblical story, David is on the terrace of his palace when he notices the woman bathing in the garden of her home, surrounded by her handmaids. Davide falls in love with her and seduces her, making her pregnant. To hide the crime, he recalls General Uriah from the front, to make him lie down with his wife, but Uriah does not want to leave his soldiers; then David sends him to fight on the front line hoping that he will be killed: this happens and David can marry Bathsheba, but he will be punished by God for the adultery and impiety committed. The painting shows the moment in which Bathsheba, having just come out of the bathroom, while she is reflected in the mirror held by a slave girl, and surrounded by other servants, reads the note that King David sent her; the latter appears at the top right, overlooking the terrace. The scene is dominated by female figures intertwined with each other, in a tangle of clothes and fabrics, and surrounded by flowers from the garden; in the center stands the mirror in a rich golden frame. The painting has a patch at the bottom right. It is presented in an antique gilded frame.