Pair of Antique Paintings on Slate Religious Subject XVII Century - The Penitent Magdalene and St. John the Baptist

Oil on hardboard. Venetian school of the late 19th century. Signed Carlini on the lower left. Moving family scene, with the fisherman just landed embracing his family - wife, mother, children and dog! - who have come to welcome him, while his colleagues unload the catch and arrange the nets. The colors are intense, especially the earthy ones of the figures, the sand and the boat, which contrast with the blue of the sky and the sea. The painting is presented in a period frame.

Oil painting on canvas. The large scene depicts Mary, already Assumption into heaven and supported on the clouds by little angels, receiving the Crown from the Holy Trinity. This coronation expresses the apotheosis of Mary, who by becoming "Queen of Heaven" becomes the intermediary between the earth, Humanity, and Heaven, the Divinity: what is not given to man to see becomes possible through Mary who in this glorification is more than ever the tenacious thread that binds us to the Almighty, the true "gate of heaven", as it is defined by the Fathers of the Church. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in an early 20th century frame.

Oil on canvas. Venetian school of the eighteenth century. The portrait proposes the figure of a young woman wearing an everyday dress, but embellished with spotted fur edges; curiously, with the raised arm she flaunts a fur muff tucked over one hand, probably a habit to underline a fashion of the time. The painting shows signs of restoration, with conservation of the original canvas, although reassembled on a new frame. It is presented in a coeval oval frame, but surmounted by a wooden frieze added at a later time.

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. 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. Central Italian school of the 17th century. In its pictorial style, the painting recalls the production of Angelo Caroselli (1585-1652), a Roman Baroque artist who was a painter, copyist, restorer, but also a pasticheur and connoisseur of art, i.e. creator of paintings "in the manner of"- in “technique” and in the “style” of a specific artistic period or of a specific author, even assembling “parts” taken from different paintings. Initially Caravaggesque, Il Caroselli later developed his own personal artistic language, which was copied by many minor artists. In this work the fixed and almost exasperated expressiveness of the character stands out, whose elegance of the seventeenth-century dress and the almost feminine features of the face with its rosy complexion contrast with the crudeness of Goliath's head, bloody, with the large stab wound that stands out against the mortal pallor. The painting has been restored and relined, retaining the original wooden frame. It is presented in a contemporary wooden frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Italian school of the 17th-18th centuries. A large composition of colorful flowers, in embossed metal vases, and some fruits scattered on the ground, are placed close to a wall overlooking a maritime landscape: the brightness of the sky and sea on the right contrasts with the shaded area on the left, on which the colors of the flowers stand out. The painting, relined and restored, has a significant crack. It is presented in a contemporary lacquered and gilded frame.

Oil painting on canvas. The identification of the saint is given by the presence of the large wooden wheel, symbol of the instrument of her martyrdom. Usually the saint is represented with a crown on her head and dressed in royal clothes to underline her princely origins. Instead here we have an atypical depiction of her, with her hair loose, covered only by a large red cloak (the color of blood, therefore of mortal humanity) which falls from her shoulders and forces her to cover her breasts with her hands; her gaze is turned upwards, where the heavens open and an angel descends, holding the palm of martyrdom with one hand and placing a crown of flowers on her head with the other, symbol of her mystical marriage with Christ . It is therefore a representation that sees her at the moment of passage to eternal life, similar to a penitent Magdalene in mystical adoration, who offers herself to Christ without any human recognition. The chromatic choices stand out in the painting, which against a dark and gloomy background bring out the red of the open sky and of the mantle, and the whiteness of the flesh, both of the woman and of the angel. The canvas, already restored and relined, is presented in a worked frame from the late 19th century, with some defects.

Oil painting on canvas. The scene takes place near a military camp: outside a tent on the left an army leader, probably Greek, is receiving offerings from a group of men, poor and ragged, who prostrate themselves before the new master; the first is holding out some loaves of bread, another is taking something out of a sack, the third is showing the wounds on his body to ask for mercy; behind them other figures of beggars are approaching, forming a scattered line on the path fading into the distance on the right. In the background on the left, life in the military camp is bustling. The painting has been restored and relined.

Oil painting on canvas. Northern Italian school of the 17th-18th centuries. The scene shows the clash between knights outside the walls of a besieged city, with the smoke of firearms invading the sky. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in an adapted antique frame. The scene shows the clash between knights outside the walls of a besieged city, with the smoke of firearms invading the sky. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in an adapted antique frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Northern Italian school of the 17th century. The large painting presents as its subject a well-known Old Testament theme, the wealth of King Solomon, told in the First Book of Kings: "King Solomon surpassed, therefore, in wealth and wisdom, all the kings of the earth. In every part of the earth to approach Solomon to listen to the wisdom that God had placed in his heart. Everyone brought him, every year, offerings of silver and gold objects, clothes, weapons, spices, horses and mules". In the painting the king, richly dressed with the symbols of royalty (the crown, the scepter, the ermine cloak), listens standing to the postulants who come to him to receive the advice dictated by his proverbial wisdom, and in exchange they bring him offerings, which are commensurate with their social role: some farmers bring gifts of bags of grain, the fruits of their work in the fields, another raises a cup high, to attract the king's attention. The colors and pictorial style of the painting refer to the production of northern Italy, especially Venetian. The painting has been restored and relined.

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.