60's Mirror

Sculpture Mid 20th Century

Alabaster sculpture depicting an embrace, made by carving a partially rough block of alabaster.

Painting Diana and the Nymphs Surprised by Actaeon

Oil on canvas. A large and wide green landscape, near a cave from which a spring flows to create a clear body of water, is the setting for the myth of Actaeon: the young hunter, during a hunting trip, accidentally came across the cave where the goddess Diana and her companions were bathing. As soon as she noticed his presence, the goddess, surprised by Actaeon in this moment of great intimacy, became so angry that she threw water in his face, transforming him into a deer. His dogs, not recognizing him, pounced on him and tore him to pieces: from a hunter Actaeon had become prey. The story of Diana and Actaeon has inspired the imagination of numerous artists, who have tried their hand at this subject, always obtaining original and different interpretations. The painting, relined, is presented in a re-adapted antique frame.

Sketch by Francesco Paolo Michetti

Study for Vegetation

Pencil on paper. Signed lower right. Michetti, originally from Abruzzo, studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, where he developed his realistic and naturalistic style. But rural Abruzzo, with its still uncontaminated nature, was always his main source of inspiration. Here is a small study of country vegetation. Framed,

Antique Painting Interior Scene Oil on Canvas XIX Century

Oil on canvas. Flemish school of the early 19th century. The scene, set in the shabby and spartan environment of an inn, features two card players using a barrel as a support surface, watched by two others, while they drink their mug of wine and smoke. The innkeeper, with his back to the right, is leaving the room. The scene is lively and amusing, with rather caricatural characters. On the first canvas, the painting is presented in a late 19th century gilded frame.

Painting Portrait of a Girl in Prayer

Oil on canvas. European school of the mid-19th century. It depicts a young girl with clasped hands and in an attitude of meditation, reciting her prayers. On the first canvas, the painting has patches on the back. It is presented in a period frame.

Modern Painting Signed Walter Pozzi Oil on Canvas XX Century

Tavern

Oil on canvas. Signed lower right. On the back, further signature and title. Sparkling with light and color, Pozzi's painting, often evanescent and acrid, is pervaded by an ironic temperament, by his need to drug images with the merciless mockery of a false and fictitious world and yet, despite this, full of allusions. In this work, the bright colors contrast with the fixity and poor expressiveness of the figures: in a place of conviviality, such as an inn, these characters are distant from each other, blocked in their position, in their expression devoid of feeling. The painting is presented in a frame.

Antique Painting Capriccio Oil on Canvas Europe XVIII Century

Oil on canvas. Northern Italian school of the 18th century. Typical architectural capriccio, or landscapes with inserted architectural structures, often ruins of classical taste but in this case rather the columned pronaos of a baroque structure, imposing to occupy most of the scene and contrasting with the small and poorly defined figures of wayfarers or popular characters. The dièinto, restored and relined, is presented in a mid-1900s style frame.

Antique Painting Landscape Ruins Oil on Canvas XVIII-XIX Century

Oil on canvas. Northern Italian school of the late 18th-early 19th century. In the wide landscape, which allows the gaze to wander over a vast plain with soft hills that loom on the horizon, an architectural ruin in stone is inserted on the right, while on the left a bridge, equally old and ruined, crosses the river. Numerous figures of wayfarers, on foot or on horseback, fill the scene. The painting, still on its first canvas, is presented in a golden frame from the early 20th century.

Antique Painting Landscape Oil on Canvas XVIII Century

Oil on canvas. Central European school of the late 18th century. The large painting offers a rural landscape, with a peasant house on the left, the shepherdess in the foreground on the left who watches her flock of sheep watering in the nearby stream. The atmosphere of muted colors and soft lights, with pink clouds in the sky, recalls a quiet and peaceful twilight. On the first canvas, the painting is presented in a contemporary regilded frame.

Antique Painting Signed Achille Zo Oil on Canvas XIX Century

Female Portrait

Oil on canvas. Signed on the right, halfway up the canvas. It is the portrait of a woman in mourning, a young widow, as can be deduced not only from her black dress, but rather from her headdress and especially from the cameo with a male portrait, which she wears hanging from her neck. Achille Zo was a French artist (from Bayonne, a town in the Pyrenees that was culturally influenced by the Basque Country), who despite having repeatedly stayed in Paris and Bordeaux, where he trained artistically, then made several trips to Spain, both to Madrid (in 1856) and to Andalusia (1860), producing for several years works with historical subjects or Spanish genre scenes. At the end of the 1860s, he turned instead to Orientalism. There are also several portraits in his production. The painting proposed here, on the first canvas, is presented in a beautiful contemporary frame from the second half of the 19th century.

Antique Painting Religious Subject Oil on Canvas XVII Century

David Playing the Harp

Oil on canvas. Northern Italian school of the 17th century. The scene depicts the biblical episode taken from the First Book of Samuel which thus tells: "Now when the evil spirit permitted by God came upon Saul, David took the harp and began to play; Saul felt relieved, he felt better, and the evil spirit departed from him." In the painting the figures are powerful and vigorous, both King Saul and the guards who hold him, depicted in a tangle of figures that occupies the entire left part of the scene; on the right instead is David, who although young and simple shepherd, stands calmly before the furious king, playing his instrument with dignity and firmness. In the background on the right, in a corridor of the palace, the priests and the king's advisors watch the dinner in dismay. On the frame of the painting is a plaque attributing it to Bernardo Strozzi. The painting was restored and relined in the mid-1900s, and is placed in a gilded frame in style.

Modern Painting Religious Subject Italy XIX-XX Century

Painting on canvas. Unlike most contemporary banners, this one is hand painted and not printed on canvas. The scene is divided into three parts, enclosed within a frame painted with floral motifs and separated by the design of small columns. In the center are depicted the Madonna with Jesus on the throne, on the sides two angels with the appearance of girls. The painting is then framed by a trimming.