ANCIENT PAINTING
 

French school. Mid 18th century

Oil on wooden board. French School. Mid-18th century. The scene depicts a party in a park enclosed by walls with arched openings that open onto the countryside, and decorated on the right with an amphora on a small column and in the center, behind the figures, with a gushing fountain, with statues of cherubs and shells. Two couples of richly dressed ladies and gentlemen are gallantly entertaining each other, surrounded by servants; one of the men is playing the violin, crouched in front of his lady who, flanked by the damsel, follows the melody on the score held by the black man at her side, while two musicians accompany the playing with the flute and a mandolin; the other couple, in an attitude of intimate dialogue, listens on the left, while on the right the hunter returning from the hunt also observes the scene. The painting is presented in a period frame.

Grapes, figs, pomegranates and peaches on a capital

Oil on canvas. Signed ‘Max. PF.' on the upper frame of the capital. The still life consists of grapes, pomegranate and peaches placed on a capital, there is also a silver tray in the composition; in the background is a landscape with trees and ruins, on the left is a glimpse of a cerulean sky, barely veiled by clouds. Maximilian Pfeiler made a name for himself with his still lifes in which he placed an architectural fragment in the background of the flowers and fruit, already introducing the taste for ancient ruins that was to become fully established in the 18th century. The painting has been retouched and restored (minor repainting). It is presented in a frame.

Penitent Magdalene, ca. 1750

Oil on canvas. The figure of Mary Magdalene is represented here, as per tradition, with long red hair; with a gesture of painful dedication she fixes her gaze on the crucifix, which she holds with her left hand pressed against her right arm, which in turn is folded in a sign of collected penitence. The whole body is rendered with a splendid counter-twist, which has the effect of making the viewer feel the tension of the moment experienced by the saint. On her left is visible the skull, her traditional attribute, and in the background one can glimpse the outline of the cave in which she is placed. The part of the body emerges, thanks to the intense luminosity of the arms, connected to the red ochre shades of the hair and face, thus also accentuating the erotic character of the scene, recalling the exuberant painting of Rubens, which had a great influence on Crespi's work. This captivating and delightful figure of the Magdalene follows the widespread trend in the 17th and 18th centuries to depict saints with an undertone of human sensuality, revealing the patrons' preference for sacred themes imbued with profane elements. The painting, restored and relined, is presented in a late 19th-early 20th century frame.

The Penitent Magdalene and St. John the Baptist

Oil on slate. Two examples of oil painting on stone are proposed here, a pictorial genre that was particularly popular in the Venetian Republic between the 16th and 17th centuries, in its form of oil painting on blackboard or touchstone. The choice of such a dark stone as a background is not only linked to practical reasons (the proximity of the mines of Brescia and Val Brembana), but, as our two works clearly demonstrate, the emergence of the figures from the dark background responds to the light also full to the new needs of the painting of the time, which in the climate of the Counter-Reformation, tended to express not only the idealized existential certainties of the full Renaissance, but also the anxieties and the opening up to new phases, already tending with Tintoretto towards greater attention to reality and luministic contrasts, to then flow overwhelmingly into seventeenth-century research strongly focused on the contrasting combination of light and shadow. The two works presented here, well within the production of the Venetian area of ​​the first decades of the 17th century, propose two figures of saints, both hermits, placed on a dark, barely visible naturalistic background. The figure of Magdalene emerges from the darkness, leaning to follow the curve of the stone support; she is depicted looking questioningly towards the darkness, as if in a listening attitude, her left hand raised and the other resting on the remarkably shortened "memento mori". In front of her a scourge and the jar of ointment. Painted en pendant, Saint John the Baptist is represented as a young man, with a lamb at his feet, in his hand the processional cross with the banner "ecce agnus dei", while with his right hand he draws from the water source, recalling the episode that will see Jesus Christ baptized. In both paintings the figures stand out in a strong and incisive way thanks to the black that characterizes the slate plaque on which they are depicted. The two paintings, in an oval format, are presented in black wooden frames, from the late 19th century.

Flemish School, XVI Century

Oil on wooden board. Flemish school of the 16th century. The work has a plaque at the base attributing it to Lambert Van Noort (1520 -1571), justified by the closeness to his pictorial methods which can be found in the faces of Jesus and Magdalene, but not confirmable for the other parts of the painting. The work recounts the episode from the Gospel of John in which the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman accused of adultery to Jesus, to test her observance of the law of Moses, which included stoning. But Jesus, bending down to the ground, began to write with his finger in the dust, then when urged, he pronounced the words "Let anyone among you who is without sin cast the first stone", saving the woman and subsequently forgiving her. The large stage is filled with a large and tight group of characters. Jesus in the centre, is the only figure bent on the ground, estranged from the rest of the group and fixed in his gesture of writing with one finger; standing behind him, with a precise vertical alignment of her face with that of Christ, is the accused woman, who covers her body with her cloak observing Jesus' gesture, while awaiting the sentence; all around the scribes, the Pharisees, some soldiers, who instead speak animatedly among themselves, are agitated, confronting each other, indicating what Jesus is doing. The subject was widely represented in Flemish painting, with different interpretative methods. If in this painting the Flemish school is clearly perceived in the faces with hard features and in the rather rigid bodies in the movements of the scribes and Pharisees, as well as in the representation of the building in the background and in the meticulous representation of the shoes in the right foreground, the two The figures of Jesus and the woman are instead affected by the Italian influence, which softened the features of the faces, gave the movements of the body greater composure and gracefulness, and with the help of a brighter color made them stand out among the other figures. The panel of the painting was subjected to restoration and relined in the first half of the 20th century. The painting is presented in an adapted antique frame.

Oil on wooden board. Central Italian school of the second half of the 16th century. The sacred scene of the Annunciation sees the two protagonist figures placed in the foreground in an interior that corresponds to Mary's room. The young woman is sitting in front of a small wooden desk, supported by figures of angels, on which rests the prayer book and a vase with small flowers; at her feet, the sewing basket. Mary's body is partially turned backwards, in a twisted movement, almost as if she were trying to escape, as if she wanted to get away from the other figure, that of the Archangel Gabriel. He stands on the right, majestic and elegant, with one hand holding a lily and the other pointing upwards above him, where the white dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit, is emerging from a gap of light. In the background, tall columns with drapes surmount the platform on which Mary's bed rests. The composition refers, in the figurative style and in the chromatic choices, to the already mannerist painting of the schools of central Italy: in particular there is a strong concordance of style and composition with some works of the same subject by the painter Bastiano Vini Detto Bastiano Veronese (1525-1530 / 1602), who lived and worked in Pistoia from around 1540. It is in this city that some of his Annunciations are found: in particular the one in the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie (an altarpiece measuring over two meters in height), shows clear similarities on a formal and compositional level with the one presented here . There is concordance in the setting of the sacred scene: a room, in the background of which is a curtain that partially covers a bed, furnished with the elements essential to the narrative, the lectern and the chair richly decorated with caryatids of cherubs or angels that seem to be carved in the wood. The compositional scheme corresponds, albeit with slight variations, with the two figures arranged "frieze-like" on the same laying plane, and the somatic features of the Virgin and the Archangel also correspond. However, the floor differs, which, while it is homogeneous in our table, in the Pistoia one presents itself with alternating checkerboard colors, but it seems that this design of the floor was added in a later period, on the occasion of the reconstruction of the altar in 1637 -1639, in pendant with that of another work by the same Sebastiano Vini in the same church, a Sacred Conversation. It therefore seems rather certain that our panel was painted looking at the work of Bastiano Veronese, probably at the specific request of the client, and before the change in the floor, therefore dating back to the second half of the 16th century. The painting has undergone restoration, with the application of two reinforcements to the back of the panel. It is presented in a late 19th century setting. (Reference for the Pistoia altarpiece: Catalog of cultural heritage https://catalogo.beniculturali.it/detail/HistoricOrArtisticProperty/0900035285)

Winter Landscape with Figures on Ice

Oil painting on canvas. Flemish school of the XVII-XVIII century. On the frame there is a label attributing to Thomas Heeremans (but with incorrect date). The large scene offers a winter landscape appropriate to the Dutch territory, as it is characterized by a frozen canal, near a village, populated by numerous figures of skaters, intent on daily activities: the horse-drawn sleigh for transporting people, the the man who pushes the "wheelbarrow" full of wood, the child who pushes himself into his little box; other figures pass by on the embankment along the canal. The gray and cold sky of a winter day hangs over everything. The subject was the recurring one in the production of the Dutch painter Thomas Heeremans, who mainly painted winter landscapes of his land, replicating them several times due to the success obtained, and inducing numerous other artists to imitate him; it is therefore thought that this work can be traced back to an imitator of the Heeremans, rather than to him directly. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Lombard area of the late 18th century. The four canvases show scenes from Orlando Furioso, the famous epic poem written by Ludovico Ariosto and published for the first time in 1516. On the frame, on the back, there are handwritten writings in ancient Italian, which say the title of the scene and they give the reference of the song and the verse. All four scenes represent episodes taken from the first two songs of the poem and appear to be sequential. The attributive titles are as follows: 1- “This painting represents that Paladin galiardo (Rinaldo) son of Amone sig. di Monte Albano, which describes Ariosto in canto 1 to verse 12 ”: depicts the moment in which Rinaldo, on foot of his horse Baiardo, sees Angelica escaped from the camp of Namo di Baviera in the wood. 2- "This painting represents Angelica and Ferraù when she comes to their aid, which Ariosto describes in canto 1 verse 14": Angelica fleeing from Rinaldo, meets in the woods Ferraù, a noble Saracen knight who is also in love with the girl, who helps to escape by opposing the Christian knight. 3- “This painting represents Rinaldo and Sacripante who fall down, Angelica runs away from their fury. Ariosto describes it in Canto 2 verse 10 ": Rinaldo and Sacripante fight to compete for the love of Angelica, who in the meantime runs away. 4- “This painting represents Rinaldo and Sacripante in the act they fell for Angelica and were stopped by a spirit in the form of a Valletto. Ariosto describes it in canto 2 verse 15 ": while the two knights fight, Angelica meets a hermit, who, with a spell, evokes a spirit with the appearance of a footman, who interrupts the duel between the two contenders. The paintings therefore belong to a single pictorial cycle, attributable to the end of the eighteenth century and which, in accordance with the neoclassical taste, represents the characters in classical clothes - warriors dressed as ancient soldiers, Angelica dressed in a Roman tunic, shoes and bracelet - , but inserted in a landscape of Northern Italy, a shady and dense forest. The Orlando Furioso had the peculiarity of proposing the warlike theme associated with the love one (in particular the love story between Angelica and Medoro was preferred, which became the subject of numerous works by artists of all centuries) and obtained great popularity and success: His representations were numerous in all ranges of visual pictorial art, in stately frescoes, paintings, ceramics, even apothecary jars, cups, medals, pendulums, candelabra. It began in the Emilian land, the homeland of the poem created by Ariosto for Cardinal Ludovico D'Este, to arrive at the Medici courts, in Lombardy, where subsequently Ariosto's pictorial cycles were carried out in numerous palaces and stately homes. The canvases are presented in gilded style frames.

Landscape with Architecture and Figures

Oil on canvas. The large landscape is dominated by an imposing architectural structure with columns overlooking the sea, which occupies the entire central part of the canvas, while a fortress is outlined on the right. The scene is then animated by numerous figures of commoners intent on daily activities: in the foreground on the left, on the quay, a group of men awaits the load of numerous crates and trunks. The monogram D.G. This abbreviation, together with the baroque stylistic modality, refers to the attribution to Domenico Gargiulo, stage name of the Neapolitan painter Micco Spadaro (1609/1612 - 1675). Active mainly in Naples, especially in the two decades between the mid-seventeenth century, the Gargiulo established itself mainly as a landscape painter and above all for having documented the tumultuous events of Naples in the seventeenth century (eruptions, epidemics, the revolt of Masaniello). The progressive specialization in the representation of landscapes or city scenes, crowded with figurines presented with minute descriptions and with attention to popular social reality, meant that his commission was mainly of a private nature, receiving commissions from numerous Neapolitan notables, regents, knights and finding his works in all the most important Neapolitan collections of the time. Among its major clients there was also the great Flemish collector Gaspare Roomer, to whom the Gargiulo owed its fortune. Gargiulo often inserted his abbreviations in his works, but rarely dated them; it was possible to establish the dating of his production only thanks to the realization of a series of works for the monks of the Certosa di S. Martino, which took place between 1638 and 1646, among the few religious works he made but the only ones in be documented with some accuracy. The large canvas proposed here is presented in a stylish frame.

Love and Psyche

Oil painting on canvas. Northern Italian school of the 17th century. The scene refers, with some variations but very close in size, to a part of the large fresco entitled "Banchetto degli dei" in the Chamber of Cupid (or Chamber of Cupid and Psyche) of Palazzo Té in Mantua, a large representation of over nine meters made by Giulio Romano with his workshop in the 16th century. The proposed scene (which in Mantua is located to the right of the great banquet) sees Cupid and Psyche lying on a triclinium, while a small winged figure crowns them with laurel and two nymphs wash Cupid's hand; in the background on the right a group of satyrs is sacrificing a goat to the altar of a deity, while in the centre, in the distance, a city is burning. The banquet of the gods is the final moment of the myth of the two lovers who, after many trials and vicissitudes, obtain Venus'permission to get married. The work, restored and relined, is presented in an antique frame.

Still life with holes, fruit, a parrot and quail

Oil painting on canvas. Neapolitan school of the seventeenth-eighteenth century. The large composition is rich in numerous different elements: in the center stands a large floral composition, of multiple varieties in bright colors; on the left of the flowers, resting on a Doric capital, there is a budgie with bright colors contrasting with the dull ones of the dead quail lying on the floor below, together with some pumpkins and a pewter vase. The painting, restored and relined, is presented in a period frame. It comes from an important collection (Commendatore Arturo Stucchi, an entrepreneur from Como, is mentioned on the back).

Oil on slate. Painted on a thick slab of slate, the scene presents the dramatic moment in which Mary, surrounded by a group of pious women, weeps over the body of her Son taken down from the Cross: she abandons herself dramatically in the arms of the two women behind her, while at the her womb rests the inert body of the Son, on whose hand a third woman weeps; above, a group of angels who look out from the open skies, from which the divine Light springs, participate in the lamentation. Mary is the only figure who wears brightly colored clothes, which contrast with the waxy color of the body of Christ resting on her lap, while the other women wear clothes in dull colors, just as neutral are the bodies of the little angels. The figures are placed on a dark background, in which the opening of the sepulcher can hardly be seen: the chromatic effect is rendered thanks also to the pictorial base used, the slate, a stone also known as the "blackboard", as the most important slate quarries are located near the town of Lavagna in Liguria. The pictorial modality recalls the works of Pietro Mera known as the Flemish, a painter originally from Brussels who lived between the 16th and 17th centuries: active for a long time in Venice, working from 1570 to 1603 in the service of Cardinal d'Este, Mera made extensive use slate as a pictorial support for some of his works. The material with its characteristic dark color allowed the artist to create intense luministic contrasts and to emphasize the figures, depicted with a bright chromatic range and illuminated by brilliant touches of light. In good condition, the painting is presented in an antique frame.

Erminia among the Shepherds

Oil on canvas. The large canvas recounts an episode taken from the Gerusalemme Liberata by Torquato Tasso, in which the young Erminia, princess of Antioch secretly in love with Tancredi, witnesses the wounding of her beloved in a duel. Driven by love, she therefore wears the weapons of the warrior Clorinda, her close friend, and at night she goes out to reach her beloved Tancredi and heal him. But in the Christian camp a ray of moonlight illuminates her and, mistaken for Clorinda by the sentries, she is forced to make a hasty flight: this is how it happens in a village inhabited by shepherds who live far from the war in an idyllic space, where she asks and obtains to be hosted for some time in the (vain) hope of forgetting her unhappy love. The work, already attributed to Carlo Loth, is rather referable to the production of Louis Dorigny, the Parisian painter who lived for a long time in Italy, in Rome, in Venice and finally definitively in Verona, where he obtained numerous orders from Veronese but also from clients. Venetians and Lombards, extending his activity as a fresco painter from Bergamo to Udine. In Verona since the beginning of the century, the preferences in the field of painting went towards a complex classicistic language in the composition, but calm and elegant, even in the great decorative works. Dorigny conforms to this painting, who in this canvas combines the balanced classicism of Simon Vouet (of whom he was grandson) with the chiaroscuro he learned in Rome and the calm Venetian elegance. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in an early 20th century frame.

Feast day in the Village

Oil on canvas. On the back of the painting there are some labels: one from an English market (probably an auction from the early 1900s) bearing the title; a second from a Milanese gallery in via Montenapoleone (from the 1930s) and finally a label from an important private collection. The scene proposes a moment of celebration in a Nordic village: in the center of the street men and women dance and chat, while others sit at tables drinking and playing, children and animals chase each other around; the atmosphere is lively and cheerful. The pictorial style and the methods of execution are compatible with the production of David Teniers III (son of David Teniers II the Younger), a Flemish painter who in his production includes various scenes of festivity and village life. Restored and relined at the end of the 19th century, with a frame from the same period.