Small Ancient Mirror Baroque Venice Mid XVIII Century Wood - Venice, Mid XVIII Century

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. 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. 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.

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 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 18th century. According to the taste of the 18th century, the proposed landscape is dominated by the remains of an ancient temple, vestiges of past glories. All around there is a countryside with a stream, but fading in the distance towards the blue peaks of a mountain range. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.

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. 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.

Oil painting on canvas. A delicate composition of flowers is placed inside a sort of wooden cradle, with mushrooms and fruit on the ground; the background is external, but poorly defined by various stains. The work, on the first canvas, is also presented in a beautiful frame from the early 18th century, in lime wood carved with a leafy wreath held together by ribbons, and gilded with gouache.

Oil painting on canvas. In the composition, a woman with her child, in ancient clothes and flanked by an ox, kneeling on steep ground, stretch their arms upwards in an act of supplication or perhaps contemplation: it could be an interpretation of Mary who accompanies Baby Jesus to contemplate his destiny, with the ox which refers to the birth and simple pastoral life of the Holy Family. Restored and relined, the painting shows several traces of color loss. It is presented in a stylish frame.