19th CENTURY PAINTINGS
 

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower left. Inside a rural kitchen, a peasant family allows themselves a moment of celebration: the father plays the mandolin, listened to by the little girl who seems to want to dance, assisted by her mother, and by the other women of the house, smiling as they carry out their domestic tasks. The production of the Neapolitan painter Giuseppe Giardiello always looked to the folklore of Neapolitan rural and peasant life, painting, with intimate and delicate tones, both scenes of domestic life and landscape views animated by figures. The work is presented in a contemporary frame.

Stable interior

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower left. The work was previously acquired at the Sotheby's auction in Milan on 10/12/2007. It was exhibited in 1991 in the exhibition "Giovanni Sottocornola. Images from a collection" held in Milan at the Silbernagl Gallery. After an initial pictorial phase dedicated to portraits and still lifes, in the 1880s Giovanni Sottocornola approached social themes, which were becoming the favorite subjects of young Lombard painters attentive to the poorest aspects of society, linked to the adoption of original artistic techniques. Sottocornola embraced the practice of pointillist painting, of which he wrote in 1895 "For now it is certain, I am convinced that there is no other painting more capable of conveying certain sensations than this one". However, this type of painting remained entirely focused on light, on its uncertain tonal vibrations, as happens in the Interior of a stable, created towards the end of the 1980s, where the plays of light and shadow play and create the effects visual in the brushstrokes of color played on a few chromatic ranges, those of browns, expressed in a wide variety of shades. The work is presented in a period frame.

Oil on wooden board. The painting pictorially reproduces the famous sculpture by Michelangelo, the Pietà of San Pietro or Pietà Vaticana. The composition of the figures is quite faithful to the reference work, but, as well as being painted in colour, it is placed in an open-air setting that refers to Renaissance painting, with the hill of Calvary emerging in shadow on the left. A coat of arms is painted at the bottom left, evoking a noble patronage. The work is presented in a period frame. It has several spots and small drops of color.

Oil painting on canvas. The portrait of the young man, elegantly dressed, is inscribed in an oval outline. There are slight drops of color and signs of sagging of the canvas. It therefore needs restoration. It is presented in a coeval frame, with various signs of wear, to be restored.

Oil on wooden board. Signed lower right. These are three small paintings proposing landscape glimpses, made in the naturalistic style typical of Lorenzo Gignous: the two lateral ones, measuring 24 x 30 cm, propose the most recurring subject in the Lombard artist's production, i.e. glimpses of Lake Maggiore, animated by fishing boats; in the center a smaller landscape (18 x 25 cm) with a group of trees in the countryside. The three small paintings are presented in a single coeval frame.

Oil on the table. The picturesque landscape has a wide path in the foreground on the right which winds between fronds and green meadows, where flocks graze; a small family of peasants passes along the path, all engaged in the transport of goods: even the girl carries a large bundle on her head, while the mother carries the basket with her newborn son in the same way! In the background, the plain extends wide to fade towards the distant hills and into the clear and rarefied sky, which gives off an almost pink light. The fir table of the painting has undergone restoration and parqueting. The work is presented in a mid-1900s frame.

Pencil on paper. Good use of the hatching and chiaroscuro are shown in this portrait of a young woman. The portrait comes with a 19th century wooden frame that had beeen embellished with leafy and floral leather inserts; the frame has some color drops and some missing parts.

Pencil, charcoal and white lead on paper. Signed (Amalia Bianchi?) and dated at the bottom right. Very effective is the use of different pigments that creates a play of chiaroscuri that underlines the figure. The portrait come in a 19th century wooden frame with leather leafy and floral inserts; it has missing parts and color drops.

Landscape with Figures and Bread Oven

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower left. The landscape view shows in the foreground a mountain path that leads to a bread oven, where a woman prepares the bundles of wood for the fire, while a traveler approaches on the back of a donkey; in the valley the viaduct over the river that leads to the village, surmounted by other barren peaks. Micheroux, belonging to the Posillipo school, or the nineteenth-century school of Neapolitan artists dedicated to landscape painting, created several glimpses of the Campania hinterland, but little is left of his production and little is known about his life. The painting has some small drops of color. It is presented in a late 19th century frame.

Burin engravings on copper. Designed by Vincenzo Gazzotto and engraved by Antonio Bernati (1792-1873) in 1833, these are four engravings taken from the figurative repertoire "The costume of all nations and of all times, described and illustrated with an atlas" published by Lodovico Menin between 1833 and 1843. Each panel is numbered in the upper right corner, and bears in the upper center the indication of the geographical region and historical period of the costume scenes depicted. There are costumes: Lombardi sec. IX - X; Lombardi sec. XIV -XV; Tuscans sec. XIII-XIV; Marca Trevigiana sec. XIV. The engravings are presented in wooden frames from the mid-1900s, in an antique style.

Composed of woodblocked sheets, sewn together and partly colored, with matching figures and texts. The group consists of 23 booklets, of which two in three copies and one in four copies; another couple has the same cover but different contents. The booklets can be considered as "manga" of the nineteenth century: the word "manga" still today can designate many different productions, such as single cartoons, scattered drawings, more elaborate illustrations, comic strips, comic books, as well as animated drawings. Therefore, starting from the assumption that there is no "manga form" but different ways of conceiving objects and graphic forms all denominated with this word, the term manga can be attested in literary and essayistic use in Japan as early as the eighteenth century to indicate, as mentioned above, drawings and sketches. But it is from the first half of the nineteenth century that Katsushika Hokusai's 15 volumes of illustrations, studies, graphic entertainment and detailed bichromatic prints became established, thanks to the progressive publication, starting from 1814. If, on the other hand, we want to give the word the more specific meaning of “stories drawn in sequence”, then the debut must be placed in the second half of the nineteenth century, similarly to what happened in Europe and the United States for comics. The booklets are in good condition.

Fabric embroidery. The embroidery represents a half-length girl in a popular costume with a mask, in the comedy of art style. It is mounted on a wooden frame with two side handles, commanding a rear coupling, probably being a closing panel.

Oil painting on canvas. North European school of the 19th century. The romantic taste pervades this nocturnal landscape, illuminated by the light of the full moon, barely veiled by scattered thin clouds; on the country path, which runs alongside the torrential course of a river, two figures of wayfarers can be glimpsed, a child holding a woman's hand. The painting is presented in a gilded frame from the end of the 19th century.

Pencil on paper. Bottom right, on both, the writing "Pietro Mulazzi sketched", with the date 1883. By an unknown artist but skilled in the use of pencils, these are the portraits of a bourgeois couple, whose gray faces emerge clearly from the paper background red. They are presented in contemporary gilded frames, with several shortcomings (to be restored).

Oil on canvas. French school of the late 19th century. Trace of unidentified signature at the top right. In the foreground, the faces of two popular characters who seem caricatured, perhaps characters in a theatrical performance: it seems the scene of a satirical courtship, with the man who looks lasciviously at the woman, certainly not young and attractive, who is holding a bunch of flowers with an expression between resigned and confused. The painting is presented in a frame from the early 1900s.