Painting by Giovanni Buffa - Pastoral Scene with Saint and Lamb

Contemporary Drawing Signed Jean Cocteau Vis à Vis 1963

Vis à Vis 1963

Mixed media (marker, watercolor) on paper. signed and dated lower right. Jean Cocteau was a multifaceted artist: writer, playwright, playwright, he also dabbled in visual arts, loving to experiment with all the avant-gardes of his century. 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 daily life in Paris, Nijinski's Russian ballets, allegories, caricatures, poetic images. Cocteau revealed himself to be a talented sketcher, but above all an artist capable of capturing the essence of faces, behaviors, human weaknesses. The theme of the face, or rather of faces, often two profiles facing each other, vis à vis, recurs in his pictorial production. In 1962 the artist completed the construction of the open-air theatre in Cap d'Ail, on the French Mediterranean coast, whose flooring is decorated with this subject, two faces with a Greek profile facing each other, with an eye in between; the subject was then re-proposed by him in the following period - moreover the one imminent to his sudden death -, with different variations. In the drawing presented here we find the two Greek profiles, separated by the third eye but also by two twisted snakes, while in the drawing of the theatre we find leaves. The work is presented in a frame.

Painting with Landscape with Flock

Pasture

Oil on canvas. On the bottom left and on the back are the unidentified signature (Luigi M.?) and the title "Pascolo". A shepherdess accompanies her flock of sheep to pasture, in a hilly, rather wild countryside, with a small stream of water flowing through the grass. The painting is presented in a period frame.

Modern Painting Signed L. Gignus Oil on Canvas XX Century

Landscape with Figures

Oil on canvas applied to board. Signed lower left. On the back there is a cartouche with expert authentication dated 1944 and signed by a Milanese art critic. In the vast plain, green but with few trees, which recalls the Lombard plains, two farmers work near a pond, close to their farmhouse; in the background you can glimpse the mountain peaks of the Alpine chain. The subject is part of the production of strong naturalistic matrix of the painter, born in Modena but artistically raised in Milan and its surroundings, places that were frequent themes of his landscape production. The painting is presented in a period frame.

Modern Painting Drawing Signed Augusto Colombo Charcoal Italy 1943

Study of a Figure 1943

Charcoal on rough white paper. At the bottom right the artist's initials and the date 9-V-943. On the back there is a paper label with the data of the work. This is a preparatory sketch for a figure from the composition "The Wedding at Cana", created in the same year. Painter, art teacher, exponent of twentieth-century Italian figurative painting, as well as a militant anti-fascist (he was a partisan), Augusto Colombo during the years of the Second World War executed a series of works depicting the horrors of war, but also various sacred subjects. In Colombo the rejection of the post-impressionist tradition was total, as he designed each painting as a story, constructed by the composition of gestures and details, but without losing synthesis. His stylistic choice favored the large composition, where the human architecture builds, gradually, the larger architecture of the story. The sketch proposed here emphasizes the vigor of the figures painted by Augusto Colombo, where the physical structure underlines and highlights the gesture. The drawing is presented in a frame.

Modern Painting Olmedo Mezzoli Oil on Hardboard XX Century

Happy Masks

Oil on hardboard. Signed lower left. Artist's label with title on the back. Lively composition with three masks, two that refer to the commedia dell'arte while the third seems more like a carnival mask (Mastro Geppetto?), next to an hourglass, a candle and a book. Olmedo Mezzoli's production aims to re-propose the figures of the classical world in a modern key. Framed work.

Modern Painting Signed Olmedo Mezzoli Oil on Hardboard '900

Diana

Oil on hardboard. Signed lower right. Artist's label with title on the back. Portrait of a female face with a crescent moon on her forehead, referring to the mythological divinity Diana, goddess of hunting and representation of the moon. Olmedo Mezzoli's production aims to propose the figures of the classical world in a modern key. Framed work.

Sculpture Mid 20th Century

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

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.

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.

Modern Painting U. Vittore Bartolini Oil on Canvas 1954

Auronzo di Cadore

Oil on canvas, 1954. Signed and dated lower right. Further signature and title on the back. In a contemporary gilded frame.