Painting Saint Francis of Paola Calms the Storm

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.

Gouache on cardboard. Accompanied by a Finarte authentication from 1982, which defines it as "Marco Ricci school". The landscape features a wide valley nestled between mountain peaks and inhabited by a village, with the river in the foreground, on whose bank some characters are engaged in conversation. The colors are soft and bright. The work is presented in a period frame.

Pencil on paper. Bottom right, on both, the writing "Pietro Mulazzi sketched", with the date 1883. By an unknown artist but skilled in the use of pencils, these are the portraits of a bourgeois couple, whose gray faces emerge clearly from the paper background red. They are presented in contemporary gilded frames, with several shortcomings (to be restored).

Landscape with River and Figures 1878

Watercolor and pencil on paper. Signed and dated lower left. We know of several landscape views of the English countryside by the English painter Henry Clifford Warren, mostly painted in watercolour. Here is a view of a wooded countryside crossed by a wide river, with a shepherd leading his cows to graze on the hill in the foreground. Presented in a frame.

Oil on panel. Northern European school of the late 19th century. In the composition inside a shed, hunted game lies on a level; on the left the muzzle of the hunting dog appears but is turned towards a nest full of chirping birds, located above the shaft of the carriage seen on the right. The painting is presented in a period frame.

Oil on canvas. French school of the late 19th century. Trace of unidentified signature at the top right. In the foreground, the faces of two popular characters who seem caricatured, perhaps characters in a theatrical performance: it seems the scene of a satirical courtship, with the man who looks lasciviously at the woman, certainly not young and attractive, who is holding a bunch of flowers with an expression between resigned and confused. The painting is presented in a frame from the early 1900s.

Rebecca at the Well

Oil on canvas. The scene tells a biblical episode from the book of Genesis: Eliezer, Abraham's servant, is sent by him to look for a wife for his son Isaac. At a well, Eliezer meets a young woman, Rebecca, who offers him some of the water she had just drawn for herself and her camels. The servant interprets this gesture of kindness as a divine sign and proposes her as a bride for Isaac. A widely represented subject, in this work the figure of the young Rebecca stands out in the center, intent on offering the servant Eliezer the skin full of water, while around the servants and maidservants observe the scene. The work, already relined and restored, is presented in a strip frame.

Female Head

Tempera on wood depicting a half-length female figure; she wears a red dress over a light-colored tunic, while a green cloth rests on her right shoulder. The red hair is gathered in a central parting and is partly covered by a white headdress; the full face has an absorbed expression: the pensive gaze, the arched eyebrows and the slightly furrowed lips. Presented in a frame made with parts of an ancient frame of larger size.

Oil on canvas. Italian school of the late 18th - early 19th century. The landscape of romantic taste sees a river flowing between rocky banks topped by leafy trees; on the bank, in the foreground on the left, two fishermen cast their lines into a pool of still water created by a small inlet. The painting bears a label on the frame attributing it to Domenico Pecchio (1693 -1760). Restored, it is presented in a period frame.

Oil on canvas. Venetian school of the late 17th-early 18th century. Within a large classical landscape, rich in vegetation and with pink atmospheres, there is a small group of soldiers: some, resting on a rock overlooking a stream, are watching one of them who is getting wet, after having placed his armor in the water. The painting was presented at the Lempertz auction in 2017 with an attribution to Andrea Locatelli (1695 -1741) and an estimate of €7/9 thousand; the pictorial methods of the work also seem closer to those of Marco Ricci (1676 -1730), widely taken up by other authors of the Venetian area. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a late 19th century gilded frame.

Oil on canvas. Set in a classic landscape, rich in vegetation, the scene represents the biblical episode from the book of Genesis which tells how the people of Israel, who are crossing the Sinai desert to reach the Promised Land, find themselves without water: Moses invokes God's help and performs the miracle of making water spring from a rock. In the scene, the people of Israel rejoice and celebrate the miracle, rushing to bathe and quench their thirst in the pool of water evoked by Moses, who can be glimpsed standing to the left of the dry trunk in the foreground, a symbol of the aridity of the land. The branches of the trees moved by a strong wind and the sky full of dark clouds that are beginning to tear, evoke the presence of God. The multiple figures, rendered with accurate details, create movement and action. This painting has already been presented at the Lempertz auction with an attribution to Giovanni Ghisolfi (1623 -1683), an artist who developed a perfect combination between past and modernity, thanks to a deep interest in classicism, rendered however with effective perspective precision in the landscape and great precision of details in the figures. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a late 19th century gilded frame.