ART SELECTION

The model derives from an engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi based on a drawing by Raphael, specially made for the graphic work, deriving from a painting placed in the Stanza della Segnatura (1513-1515). This model was taken up and changed by Hans von Aachen in a canvas dated 1588 and today preserved at the Museum of the Charterhouse of Douai, in turn taken up in an engraving of the following year by Raphael Sadeler, in the Cabinet of Drawings and Prints of the 'Carrara Academy of Bergamo. The canvas in question is derived from this last version, which shows the same changes made with respect to the Raphaelesque original. At the center of the scene, which takes place immersed in a natural landscape, are the three goddesses who competed for the title of the most beautiful: Juno with the peacock, her symbolic animal, Venus accompanied by Cupid and Minerva next to which are the helmet, spear and shield. Paris, from behind, is giving the golden apple that decrees the winner to the goddess of love, under the gaze of Judge Mercury. Two cherubs flit around the protagonists, while in the foreground, always from behind, there is a male figure. A country boarding school is taking place on the back lawn. The work, as evidenced by a small scroll, is attributed to Domenico Lupini, an artist about whom not much is known but for whom it is possible to hypothesize the scope of his activity between Bergamo and Venice. The only two signed works are a "converted Magdalene" and an "Annunciation", but other works have been attributed to him by the scholar Federica Nurchis and placed in the monastery of Santa Chiara in Bergamo. These paintings present a warm and refined chromatism which, together with the elegance of the characters and the compositional modality, suggest a Venetian stay by Lucini, which seems to recall the atmospheres of Tintoretto, Veronese and Palma il Giovane. Presented in a 17th century gilded frame, restored and relined.

Sculpture project

Pencil on watermarked paper. Signed lower left. The drawing is accompanied by an authentication on photo from the Fausto Melotti Archive, with code DIS 36 015, showing the data of the work. Fausto Melotti was a multifaceted and very prolific artist and it is almost impossible to link his production to a particular technique or theme, without providing only a partial view of his artistic vision. The salient features that are constant in Melotti are geometry, the study of abstraction, which leads him to use realistic but not scientifically accurate elements, and arranging the elements so that they recall a musical rhythm, a detail that refers to his training as a musician Sculptor, painter, musician, poet, he made numerous design drawings for his works. Drawing represented for him a fundamental exercise, to transfuse the original graphic trait from sheets of paper into sculptures and ceramics. The sculptures for which he is best known are made up of geometric elements made with metals (brass, iron and gold) worked into thin filaments, giving life to ethereal, weightless and almost fragile compositions. The work is presented in a frame.

Central Italy XVII Century

Baroque sculpture in walnut, central Italy 17th century. The male figure, created to be seen in an elevated position with respect to the observer and originally part of a larger sculptural group, is characterized by wavy hair and beard, right arm brought to the chin while the left in an enveloping position, in the act of to support an object or to cling to some element of support; dressed in a rich drapery that leaves the upper part of the bust and the legs uncovered, one bent and the other stretched out. The volume and plasticity of the body, combined with the sense of movement transmitted by the twist, look to the sculptural production of the Roman Baroque.

3 Faces 8 Leaves

Gouaches on paper. On the back there are stickers from Sotheby's Auction with the artist's name and the original title "Three faces eight leaves". These are two similar drawings, with the same subject albeit with small differences, and colored with different techniques. Jean Cocteau was a multifaceted artist: writer, playwright, playwright, he also dabbled in the visual arts, loving to experiment with all the avant-gardes of his century. Jean Cocteau published his first book of drawings in 1923, at just 36 years old. In it the poet portrayed his friends Raymond Radiguet, Pablo Picasso, Erik Satie, Francis Poulenc, but also numerous scenes of Parisian daily life, Nijinski's Russian ballets, allegories, caricatures, poetic images. Cocteau reveals himself to be a talented sketcher, but above all an artist capable of capturing the essence of faces, behaviors and human weaknesses. Framed work.

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. Italian school of the eighteenth century. Within a rather barren landscape, with architectural ruins on the left and snow-capped peaks in the background on the right, some shepherds pass along the path, leading their flocks of cows, sheep and goats. In the Nordic landscape setting, the pinkish hue of the sky and the pastoral character of the scene give that idealistic atmosphere typical of eighteenth-century landscape painting, in which the satisfaction of feeling prevailed rather than the intention of realistic transposition. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.

The Tale of Apollo and Marsyas

Oil painting on canvas. Northern Italian school of the seventeenth century. The large canvas derives from an engraving of 1562 by the Venetian Giulio Sanuto, who faithfully reproduced the homonymous work by Bronzino (1503-1572), currently preserved in the Hermitage; compared to the original, the engraving added the group of Muses and modified the landscape background by introducing views of the villages. The work is divided into four scenes, which must be read from right to left. The first scene depicts the musical contest between Apollo and the Silenus Marsyas, who played the flute so well that he was considered superior to the same god; the two contenders are performing, the god with the lyre and the silenus with the flute even upside down (to increase the difficulty of the undertaking), in front of King Midas and the goddess Minerva, recognizable by her attributes, the helmet, the spear and the shield. In the second scene Apollo is intent on skinning Marsyas, to punish him for having won the musical contest; lean on the ground next to him, his cloak and lyre. In the third scene, it is King Midas who is punished by the god for having preferred Marsyas to him: Apollo is putting the donkey's ears on Midas, while Minerva is watching. Finally, the fourth scene, in the foreground on the left, is characterized by a particular figure, identified in the faithful servant and barber of the king: since Midas had ordered him to keep the secret on his donkey ears, not being able to let off steam otherwise, he dug a hole in the ground and yelled into there his secret; in that place, however, legend has it that a bush of reeds grew that with the wind whispered "King midas has donkey ears", thus revealing the dreaded secret. The painting has been previously restored and relined, but currently needs any further color recovery. On the back in pencil there is an old attribution to the Ferrara school ("Ercole da Ferrara"). It is presented in a late 19th century style frame.

Aaron with Moses before the Pharaoh

Oil on canvas. XVII-XVIII century. The great scene tells a biblical episode from the book of Exodus, in which Aaron with Moses before the Pharaoh of Egypt, transforms his staff into a snake, to emulate the tricks that the Egyptian magicians had done to frighten them. The Pharaoh seated on his throne on the left, surrounded by servants, and the magicians on the right, observe the miracle in consternation and fright, while in the center Aaron, recognizable by the priestly headdress, indicates the event while at his side Moses, with the raised finger indicates heaven, to send the miracle back to divine power. The snake here has the shape of a winged dragon, which is trampling the snakes of the Egyptian magi. The typology of the scene and the pictorial modes refer to the production of Antonio Molinari (1655 -1734), one of the most authoritative representatives of Venetian painting at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who distinguished himself for his personal style, characterized by an accentuated theatricality of gestures , from a lively palette and a remarkable fluidity of the brushstroke. Molinari achieved considerable success with the production of room paintings depicting episodes of a historical, mythological or biblical nature, which were widely taken up and re-proposed. The large canvas, restored and relined, is presented in a style 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.

Oil on canvas. Nazario and Celso were two Christian martyrs, who died in Milan in 304 a.C., veneered both by the Catholic and the Orthodox Church, who travelled through Italy as evangelisers, and were persecuted by Romans. According to the tradition, the two young men were condemned to die and put on a ship that was supposed to take them offshore, where they would have been thrown overboard. The legend narrates that, once they had been thrown overboard, they started walking on water. There was a storm which terrorised the sailors, who asked Nazario for help. The waters got calm immediately. In the end, the ship landed in Genua, where Nazario and Celso continued their evangelising work, in all the Liguria region and pushing even to Milan, where they were arrested again and sentenced to death a second time. The painting is in its first canvas and has never been restored, it needs some cleaning up but it is in good condition (micro paint losses). It is presented in a coeval frame, with defects.

Faun-Demon. Female figure with goat legs. Animal skin on her shoulders. Demonic face. She is holding a turtle.

Oil on canvas. A large architectural structure, imposing in its classicism, with tall twisted columns and elaborate Corinthian-style capitals, dominates a gentle and nuanced lake landscape, which teems with the daily activity of small figures of wayfarers, fishermen, and commoners, well described in their peculiarity. The painting is close to the manners of Viviano Codazzi (1604 -1670) to which it was traditionally attributed. Originally from Bergamo but then active in Rome and Naples, Codazzi was a famous painter of perspectives, considered by many to be the inventor of the view and of the architectural whim. Also close to the Bamboccianti genre, he distinguished himself for the descriptive care of the various protagonists, their gestures, their clothing, care indicating a vision and a study from life of everyday life, read and interpreted without literary filters but with marked naturalism. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a coeval frame.

"L'arc en ciel" XVII Century

Oil painting on canvas. Northern European school of the seventeenth century. The large pastoral scene presents a broad landscape that pushes the gaze to the distant sea coast; on it the sky is gradually opening up, revealing flashes of blue on the left, while on the right, among the darker clouds left over from the storm, a large rainbow is revealed. In the foreground, a group of shepherds and shepherdesses enjoy amorous games, discrete and festive, in the midst of their herds, which rest and drink from the nearby stream. The whole scene is animated by a dimension of joyful relaxation and refreshment, as if the rainbow had restored serenity to the environment, bringing light and with it serenity to the world. The attribution to Jordaens is linked both to the typology of subject, the pastoral one, a recurring theme in the production of the Flemish artist, and to the pictorial modalities: in this work we find his warm and luminous colours, the strong contrasts of light and shadow, the robust figures with red and healthy faces, sometimes with satyristic features, the compositions full of figures that give an air of sensual vitality. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period gilded frame.

Oil on canvas. Flemish school of the seventeenth century. Already attributed to Jan Peeters (1624 -1677), the painting falls fully within the style and genre of the author who, working in his father's workshop and then in his brother Bonaventura's, specialized in marines, above all in the "Fortune di mare" i.e. the accidents due to the sea, and to any other event caused at sea by fortuitous events or insurmountable obstacles, which therefore in painting become representations of storms with ships and crews at the mercy of events. This is exactly what the painting proposed here is about: some ships, full of men, are at the mercy of the high waves of a night storm, near the coast which, with its protruding rocks, has already caused the shipwreck of some small boats. One perceives the struggle of men, small and defenseless, against the forces of nature, dominant, violent, gloomy and hostile, which dominates and attacks the boats both from the sea and from the sky, dark and black. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.

Italy, Half XIX Century

Female statue in white statuary marble, allegorical personification of autumn, Italy mid-19th century. Whole figure dressed in the old fashioned way with gown, headdress of vine leaves and bunches of grapes, the latter also placed along the left side; with his right arm he holds autumn fruits. Resting on a circular base. Small breaks.

Oil on canvas. As signed by the label on the back, the painting was presented athe "Venetian Baroque Painting Exhibition" of 1943, with the title "in porto al tramonto" and the attribution to Marco Ricci. This attribution can be motivated by the executive ability, which through rapid and loose brushstrokes. It manages to fully render the natural reality of the stormy sea with sensivity. In this regard, see the similar images published by Rodolfo Pallucchini in the studies "Studi ricceschi: contributo a Marco published in the magazine Arte veneta (vol. IX, 1955). Ricci's landscape and marine productions (which, however, were not his most extensive production) are characterized by powerful and emotional lights, by dry and twisted trees, rocks and towers, cumulus clouds that suddenly break open in vague flashes of blue, foaming waves, a complex repertoire that transfigures nature into a dramatic and restless representation, in which man is also inserted as an integral element. Also in this painting we find these highly dramatic but at the same time scenographic elements, with some human figures, three men on a small boat in the foreground, who are barely distinguishable from the sea and the rocks that surround them, as well as the ship on the left sinking engulfed by the sea. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Tuscan school of the seventeenth century. Scion of an ancient Longobard lineage of Aquino (in the province of Frosinone), Thomas (born around 1226) went to Naples to study, in 1243 he entered the order of Dominican preachers against the wishes of his relatives, but during the journey to the northerner was arrested by his brothers and held prisoner for about a year. In the scene, the young saint in the centre, already dressed in the Dominican habit, is surrounded on both sides by four richly dressed figures, precisely his relatives, probably including his mother, who hold him kindly, almost embracing him, while with gestures of the hands and the afflicted and loving looks try to convince him, almost begging him. The figures are also placed in a prison, as indicated by the bars in the window on the right, to underline the coercive action performed. Rich and detailed are the details of the clothes of the characters, with bright colors that contrast with Thomas' dress, plastic movements properly in Baroque taste. Already restored and relined, the painting is in good condition, with evident cracking. It is presented in an antique re-lacquered and re-gilded frame.

Vicenza stone sculpture depicting Hercules, according to the typical iconography: a muscular and bearded man, with a club on his shoulders; he is represented with a dynamic posture that creates a spiral movement, characteristic of the Baroque taste.

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.