ANCIENT PAINTING
 

Landscape Painting with Preaching Scene

Oil on canvas. Venetian school of the 18th century. The large Nordic landscape, with verdant mountain slopes through which a river flows, is inhabited by several figures in the foreground: a group of people are listening to a young man standing in the center, who is announcing something, pointing, with his arm stretched upwards, to the sun that is tearing apart the dark clouds. It evokes a sermon by Saint John the Baptist, although no iconographic element specifically refers to this character. The painting, restored and relined, is mounted on a stretcher from the early 1900s. It is presented in a contemporary frame.

Painting with Triumph of Bacchus

Oil on canvas. The large painting represents the triumph of the god Bacchus, incarnation of pleasure, who, now drunk, sits on the ground, holding between his legs a jar from which wine flows, while around him various Maenads dance, play, and a bejeweled woman, perhaps Ariadne of royal lineage, throws flower petals on his head; above, an angel plays a trumpet as a sign of celebration, while at the bottom left, two small satyrs are sleeping, crouched on the ground. The intertwining of the bodies and the rather homogeneous chromatic range, which goes from the pale pink flesh tones of the nymphs to the earthy ruby color of Bacchus, fading into the reddish background, give the scene uniformity but ample movement. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.

Antique Painting Winter Landscape Oil on Canvas '700-'800

Oil on canvas. The wide view frames a snowy mountain landscape, with a wide valley under sharp peaks, in which a small lake opens up; small figures of wayfarers walk along the path that starts from the village on the left. The whiteness of the snow creates a muffled and luminous atmosphere, in contrast with the dark cloudy sky. The painting is presented in a golden frame from the early 1900s.

Antique Painting Landscape Oil on Canvas XVIII Century

Oil on canvas. Venetian school of the 18th century. The large landscape frames a cultivated countryside near a river, with farmers busy harvesting wheat, gathering it in bundles; other wayfarers walk on the path coming from the village, in the background rise snow-capped peaks. The human figures, more detailed in the foreground, less defined silhouettes in the distance, are chromatically uniform with the colors of the earth, which range in the ranges of brown-ochre, also incorporating the watercourse; all around, framing the scene of work in the fields, the branches of the trees and the sky full of clouds. Restored and relined, with replacement of the stretcher. It is presented in a contemporary frame.

Antique Painting Signed G. Francesco Clipper Oil on Canvas '700

A Cherry Seller Being Courted by Two Musicians ca. 1720

Oil on canvas. The painting is accompanied by an expertise by the art historian Dr. Giuseppe Sava. The protagonist of the open-air market scene is a cherry seller, wearing a showy straw hat and sitting next to a basket of these fruits placed on a wooden bench, next to a stone on which the steelyard rests. With a smiling, almost winking look, turned towards the viewer, she is accepting the advances of the man who, behind her, is placing a hand on her shoulder, with a lascivious look, while two musicians on the left improvise a small concert. The composite and cheerful group harks back to the production of Giacomo Francesco Cipper, known as Todeschini (1664 -1736), a painter of Austrian origins but Lombard in training and pictorial style, who was a "singer of peasants, street vendors intent on their daily occupations or pastimes", a specialist in market scenes, open-air concerts, card players, scenes of humble daily life created with laughing caricatural forcing and a search for comic effect. Cipper drew this narrative style from the Danish painter known as Monsù Bernardo, who was active for a long time in Italy between Bergamo and Milan: in particular, from him came the predilection for everyday stories and humble characters, as well as the impertinent nature of such characters, who seek the attention of the observer by staring at him. In this painting too, the female protagonist fixes her mischievous gaze on the observer, smiling with complicity and irony at the courtship game in which the three men make her the protagonist, implying a "market" that is no longer just that of cherries. In his expertise, Dr. Sava underlines the stylistic and typological relations of this painting with other characters by Cipper, in support of the attribution; the stylistic evolution in the formal and technical aspects of his works is also explained - the colors that lighten, with an evident predilection for ochre, hazelnut, sage green, among which powder blue creeps in; the milky backgrounds, the softer luminosity and the less plastic chiaroscuro -, an evolution that allows us to place the work in his production of the early 18th century. The painting has been restored and relined. It is presented in an adapted antique frame.

Antique Painting Male Portrait Oil on Canvas XVII-XVIII Century

Oil on canvas. The man portrayed is wrapped in a luxurious purple-red damask robe and holds an envelope in his hand, indicating a noble literary status. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in an ancient frame that has been readjusted and regilded.

Antique Painting Historical Subject Oil on Canvas XVIII Century

Oil on canvas. The large scene is set outside a rocky fortress and features a garrison of soldiers preparing for battle: in the foreground on the left, near a tree, the group of commanders on horseback observe the work and give orders, while the troops arm the cannons on the ramparts, prepare rudimentary lances and sharpen their sidearms. The colors are clear and dull, with shades of gray that pass from the clear sky with clouds to the rocky fortress, to get lost in the ground, turning to a sandy beige; only a few of the officers' uniforms stand out, breaking the chromatic uniformity. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a golden frame from the early 1900s.

Antique Painting Portrait of a Noblewoman Oil on Canvas '700

Oil on canvas. The noblewoman, an elegant and proud lady with silver hair, is portrayed in a pink evening dress, trimmed with lace and frills, and completed by a blue velvet cloak, lined with a silver arabesque fabric. The lady does not flaunt any jewelry, but only has a bunch of delicate little flowers on her hair. Restored and relined, it has a small loss of color in the background at the top. It is presented in a period frame.

Painting Madonna in Adoration of Baby Jesus

Oil on canvas. This is a good copy of the work by Antonio Allegri, known as Correggio (1489 -1534), created between 1518 and 1520, donated by the Duke of Mantua, Ferdinando Gonzaga, to the Grand Duke Cosimo II de'Medici, placed in the Tribuna degli Uffizi in 1617, where it remained until 1848. The subject of the painting had enjoyed a certain popularity in the fifteenth century through the works of Filippo and Filippino Lippi who had created several versions. The iconography derives from the vision of the birth of Jesus that Saint Bridget of Sweden had in Bethlehem in 1372. In her Revelations the Saint recounts that "the Virgin took off her sandals [...] knelt in a prayerful attitude, her hands stretched out in front and, suddenly, in an instant, she gave birth to her Son. The newborn baby suddenly appeared on the ground and an ineffable light radiated from him. When Mary felt that she had given birth to the Child, she greeted him with these words: Welcome, my God, my Lord and my Son”. A beautiful and sweet Madonna is depicted kneeling in front of the newborn Jesus, contemplating him with tenderness. The Child returns his mother's gaze, stretching out his little hand in a typically childish attempt to grasp her dress. Their intimate bond is underlined by the invention of placing the newborn on a corner of the mother's cloak. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a re-adapted antique frame.

Antique Painting Folly Oil on Canvas Italy Late XVIII Century

Oil on canvas. Second half of the 18th century. A portion of a large ruined architectural structure fills the entire scene: a porch surmounted by a balustrade, overgrown with plants, surrounds a courtyard where various popular figures move, busy with their activities. A bright blue sky surmounts the structure and the light filters through one of the arches to create a play of light and shadows under the portico. On the back of the frame there is an attribution to Gaetano Vetturali (1701-1783), even if the quality of the figures here appears superior to those of the artist from Lucca, who established himself in his territory for his architectural caprices of great scenographic impact. The painting is presented in a gilded frame in style.

Antique Painting Landscape Oil on Canvas Italy XX Century

Oil on canvas. The painting, made in the first half of the 1900s, takes up the landscape works in the subject and in the pictorial mode: in a landscape rich in vegetation and with peaks in the background, a young commoner asks for charity from some travelers who rest on the roadside , near a stone arch. The canvas has undergone aging and is presented in a late 19th century frame.

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.

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 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.

Antique Painting Historical Subject Oil on Canvas XVII-XVIII Century

Oil on canvas. The woman depicted in the scene can be traced back to Porzia, the Roman noblewoman and wife of Brutus, who lived in the 1st century BC: according to legend, she committed suicide by swallowing a burning coal, and it is in this fatal moment that she is depicted here. The painting is very close to the pictorial methods of the painting of the same name from the Cignani school, attributed to his pupil Marcantonio Franceschini and preserved at Palazzo Tozzoni in Imola. The figure of Porzia, placed in an interior with classical elements, occupies the entire field of the scene, and is depicted sitting in front of the burning brazier, in the act of putting the coal in her mouth; her expression reveals the suffering of the gesture she is making, but also her determination, her gaze looking into the distance already places her far from the life she is leaving. The painting has been restored and relined. It is presented in an antique 18th century frame.

Antique Painting Michiel Caree Oil on Canvas Landscape XVIII Century

Landscape with Shepherds and Herds

Oil on canvas. Signed lower right. In a splendid classical landscape, with green hills overlooking a watercourse, a stream in the foreground that then becomes a wide river in the distance, are inserted the figures of a shepherd and a shepherdess who lead their flock to water. The pastoral scenes of this type characterized the production of the Dutch artist Michiel Carree, who was court painter to the King of Prussia in the first decades of the 18th century. The painting, in the first canvas, is presented in a contemporary golden frame, in carved and gilded wood.

Antique Painting Historical Subject Oil on Canvas XVII Century

Oil on canvas. Roman school of the second half of the 17th century. The scene tells an episode of the love story between the queen of Egypt and the Roman triumvir Anthony: Cleopatra, to demonstrate her wealth and seduce the handsome general, organizes a sumptuous banquet, during which she chooses a pearl of inestimable value and dissolves it in vinegar, then offering the drink, considered a powerful aphrodisiac, to Anthony. In the painting the queen is preparing to put the pearl in the cup: the ribbon to which the pearl is tied is particular, reminiscent of the one in the painting of the same name by Carlo Maratta (1625 -1713). Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a wooden frame from the late 19th century.