Antique Painting Workshop of Francesco Bassano Italy XVI Century - Nativity

French school. Mid 18th century

Oil on wooden board. French School. Mid-18th century. The scene depicts a party in a park enclosed by walls with arched openings that open onto the countryside, and decorated on the right with an amphora on a small column and in the center, behind the figures, with a gushing fountain, with statues of cherubs and shells. Two couples of richly dressed ladies and gentlemen are gallantly entertaining each other, surrounded by servants; one of the men is playing the violin, crouched in front of his lady who, flanked by the damsel, follows the melody on the score held by the black man at her side, while two musicians accompany the playing with the flute and a mandolin; the other couple, in an attitude of intimate dialogue, listens on the left, while on the right the hunter returning from the hunt also observes the scene. The painting is presented in a period frame.

Grapes, figs, pomegranates and peaches on a capital

Oil on canvas. Signed ‘Max. PF.' on the upper frame of the capital. The still life consists of grapes, pomegranate and peaches placed on a capital, there is also a silver tray in the composition; in the background is a landscape with trees and ruins, on the left is a glimpse of a cerulean sky, barely veiled by clouds. Maximilian Pfeiler made a name for himself with his still lifes in which he placed an architectural fragment in the background of the flowers and fruit, already introducing the taste for ancient ruins that was to become fully established in the 18th century. The painting has been retouched and restored (minor repainting). It is presented in a frame.

Flemish School, XVI Century

Oil on wooden board. Flemish school of the 16th century. The work has a plaque at the base attributing it to Lambert Van Noort (1520 -1571), justified by the closeness to his pictorial methods which can be found in the faces of Jesus and Magdalene, but not confirmable for the other parts of the painting. The work recounts the episode from the Gospel of John in which the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman accused of adultery to Jesus, to test her observance of the law of Moses, which included stoning. But Jesus, bending down to the ground, began to write with his finger in the dust, then when urged, he pronounced the words "Let anyone among you who is without sin cast the first stone", saving the woman and subsequently forgiving her. The large stage is filled with a large and tight group of characters. Jesus in the centre, is the only figure bent on the ground, estranged from the rest of the group and fixed in his gesture of writing with one finger; standing behind him, with a precise vertical alignment of her face with that of Christ, is the accused woman, who covers her body with her cloak observing Jesus' gesture, while awaiting the sentence; all around the scribes, the Pharisees, some soldiers, who instead speak animatedly among themselves, are agitated, confronting each other, indicating what Jesus is doing. The subject was widely represented in Flemish painting, with different interpretative methods. If in this painting the Flemish school is clearly perceived in the faces with hard features and in the rather rigid bodies in the movements of the scribes and Pharisees, as well as in the representation of the building in the background and in the meticulous representation of the shoes in the right foreground, the two The figures of Jesus and the woman are instead affected by the Italian influence, which softened the features of the faces, gave the movements of the body greater composure and gracefulness, and with the help of a brighter color made them stand out among the other figures. The panel of the painting was subjected to restoration and relined in the first half of the 20th century. The painting is presented in an adapted antique frame.

Oil on wooden board. Central Italian school of the second half of the 16th century. The sacred scene of the Annunciation sees the two protagonist figures placed in the foreground in an interior that corresponds to Mary's room. The young woman is sitting in front of a small wooden desk, supported by figures of angels, on which rests the prayer book and a vase with small flowers; at her feet, the sewing basket. Mary's body is partially turned backwards, in a twisted movement, almost as if she were trying to escape, as if she wanted to get away from the other figure, that of the Archangel Gabriel. He stands on the right, majestic and elegant, with one hand holding a lily and the other pointing upwards above him, where the white dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit, is emerging from a gap of light. In the background, tall columns with drapes surmount the platform on which Mary's bed rests. The composition refers, in the figurative style and in the chromatic choices, to the already mannerist painting of the schools of central Italy: in particular there is a strong concordance of style and composition with some works of the same subject by the painter Bastiano Vini Detto Bastiano Veronese (1525-1530 / 1602), who lived and worked in Pistoia from around 1540. It is in this city that some of his Annunciations are found: in particular the one in the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie (an altarpiece measuring over two meters in height), shows clear similarities on a formal and compositional level with the one presented here . There is concordance in the setting of the sacred scene: a room, in the background of which is a curtain that partially covers a bed, furnished with the elements essential to the narrative, the lectern and the chair richly decorated with caryatids of cherubs or angels that seem to be carved in the wood. The compositional scheme corresponds, albeit with slight variations, with the two figures arranged "frieze-like" on the same laying plane, and the somatic features of the Virgin and the Archangel also correspond. However, the floor differs, which, while it is homogeneous in our table, in the Pistoia one presents itself with alternating checkerboard colors, but it seems that this design of the floor was added in a later period, on the occasion of the reconstruction of the altar in 1637 -1639, in pendant with that of another work by the same Sebastiano Vini in the same church, a Sacred Conversation. It therefore seems rather certain that our panel was painted looking at the work of Bastiano Veronese, probably at the specific request of the client, and before the change in the floor, therefore dating back to the second half of the 16th century. The painting has undergone restoration, with the application of two reinforcements to the back of the panel. It is presented in a late 19th century setting. (Reference for the Pistoia altarpiece: Catalog of cultural heritage https://catalogo.beniculturali.it/detail/HistoricOrArtisticProperty/0900035285)

Snowy Landscape with Figures 1872

Oil on canvas. Signed, dated 1872 and located in Parma in the lower right corner. It is a large winter landscape with a strong scenic impact, which fits well into the scenographic traditionalism of the painting of Mentore Silvani, a native artist of Traversetolo (Parma), a landscape painter but also known as a set designer. In the scene, sprinkled with the white of a short snowfall that creates that typical rarefied and silent winter atmosphere, between bare and dry trees, a dirt road winds its way through by a traveler; on the right a dilapidated building with a wash house where a woman draws water; in the center a small column on which a sacred image is mounted. Trained in his hometown, Silvani participated in the exhibitions of the Encouragement of Parma starting from 1864, and it is mainly in his city that his works are found today (at the Municipality of Parma, the National Gallery, the Paolo Toschi artistic high school ); however, he also exhibited in Milan (1872) and Florence (1875). Trained as a scenographer at the school of Gerolamo Magnani, Silvani held this position in Parma but also in Venice starting from 1871. His pictorial production, which includes mainly rural landscapes of the Parma countryside, is always characterized by fidelity to reality. The work proposed here is presented in a contemporary frame.

Clash between Military and Guerrillas in Spain

Oil on canvas. Accompanied by an expertise by Professor Fernando Mazzocca. The painting belongs to a series of works by the Veronese painter Giuseppe Canella set in Spain, following the artist's stay in that country between 1820 and 1823, which led him to stop in various Spanish cities, the last being Madrid where he frequented the court. From his travels around Europe, Canella brought back numerous drawings from which he took inspiration for the works later reworked in his studio in Milan, often then presented at the Exhibitions of the Brera Academy. In this work the reference is to a dramatic period in the history of Spain, marked by the constitutional uprisings against King Ferdinand VII of Bourbon, which provoked French intervention in support of the monarchy against the rebels. In reality, the historical event is almost a pretext for Canella to recall the harshness and charm of the mountainous landscape, which acts as a monumental backdrop to the clash between the army and the rebels, small and almost indistinct figures. The painting, in excellent condition, presents only very slight losses of color, already restored. It is presented in a contemporary frame.