Contemporary Painting Still Life Oil on Canvas XX Century

Oil on canvas. Central European school of the first half of the 20th century. Unidentified signature on the lower left. In a wide valley under sharp mountain peaks, a small lake opens up, on which some houses overlook and boats sail; some common people's figures are busy with daily activities. Pleasant and serene in the green-blue hues of nature. It is presented in a period frame.

Watercolor on paper. Signature L. Rossi at the bottom left. It is a quick portrait, in pencil and then watercoloured, of two young ladies in winter walking clothes, shot in almost full length. The drawing is presented in a gilded and carved frame from the late 19th century, which has several defects.

Watercolor on paper. Signature L. Rossi at the bottom left. They are two young ladies in winter walking clothes, shot in almost full length. The drawing is presented in a gilded and carved frame from the late 19th century, which has several defects and traces of previous restoration

Ligurian Beach

Oil on canvas. Signed lower left. It is a glimpse of the Ligurian Riviera, near a cove, surmounted by houses close to the coast. Berto Ferrari, born and always lived in Liguria, was a skilled and sensitive marine and landscape painter of the post-impressionist tradition, who painted the beauties of the Ligurian Riviera and numerous views of the Apennine hinterland. The painting has drops of color and traces of restoration. It is in a coeval frame.

Landscape with Ancient Style Figures

Oil on hardboard. Signed lower right. Born in Milan in 1913, and trained at the Brera Academy (of which he later became a teacher), Adriano Gajoni became passionate about the study of seventeenth-century Lombard painters and Dutch and Flemish painting of the seventeenth century, from whose meticulous realism he let himself be inspired. Of strict figurative observance, Gajoni preferred landscapes, portraits and above all still lifes, which he expressed in fairy-tale and allegorical compositions. He mainly practiced oil painting on wood and hardboard. Also this painting proposes a landscape of ancient taste: in the countryside, on the path that runs along a wide river, a pastoral figure passes on his donkey, followed by his small herd. The work is presented in a style frame.

Duck Flight

Bronze sculpture. Signature engraved on the base. Gino Masciarelli, a sculptor originally from Abruzzo but who lived in the Milan area, after having also worked at the Experimental Center for Scientific Research “F. Marinotti” in Lombardy, dealing with high-frequency cinematographic shooting, learned to capture the instability of bodies in movement and the dissolution of matter in space in many of his works. In the sculptures "Human groups" and "Flight" - to which the work presented here belongs -, the dynamism of flight can be observed almost as if it were a photographic sequence. The artist himself said: "Only 8 seconds made an impression on 300 meters of film, the aim was to slow down what the human eye cannot see, I wanted to capture the movement and the projection of these seconds lasted a couple of hours".

The Woodcutter 1980

Oil on glass. On the lower left are the signature and date, accompanied by the artist's symbol, the stylised figurine of a man in a wheelchair. This is a work on glass by the painter Mario Previ, who has lived and painted in a wheelchair since the age of eighteen, due to quadriplegia following a plunge into his Taro river. He said of himself: ‘The world, the passage of time, from this point of view (the wheelchair) teaches you many things. You learn to wake up every morning with a purpose, even if your body is in pain, if every gesture generates suffering and you depend on others, and giving up could be an easy solution. And instead, art, painting, together with the serenity of my world, of friends, give me incredible energy. They have saved me, giving me the strength to live'. In 1974, three years after the accident, inspired by a television programme on Yugoslavian naïve painters, in particular by the works on glass by Mijo Kovacic, Previ began painting and learning the art of glass painting as a self-taught artist, until he became known and appreciated for his paintings. In his naifs, Mario Previ recounts a reality that has almost disappeared, real stories albeit in a fairy-tale tone, revives lost traditions, glimpses of life that belonged to other generations, those of the peasant civilisation (from which he comes), but what emerges most from his visions are the ‘forë’, those that could once be heard in the ‘firossi’, the traditional evenings in the hamlets of Parma dedicated to getting together to tell anecdotes, stories and historical curiosities, often in front of the fireplace, when it was cold and snowing outside. The work is presented in the frame.

Tableau doré

Mixed technique on plywood (painting and silver paper sheets). On the back, authentic with stamp and signature of the artist's sister. The work belongs to the series of Tableaux dorés, works created by the Milanese artist Remo Bianco starting from the 1950s. Born and educated in Milan, Remo Bianco was a pupil of De Pisis, in whose studio he frequented the great Italian artists of the twentieth century (Carrà, Sironi, Savinio, Soffici, Soldati, Marini, Cantatore). After the interlude of the war (enlisted, sank with his ship and was taken prisoner in Tunis), he resumed his artistic activity in Milan, participating in the Nuclear Movement and Spatialism, coming to completely detach himself from figurative painting to create works made of brushstrokes mashed potato. At the beginning of the fifties he began to create works, pictorial and sculptural, with different materials and to experiment with different themes and techniques; to this production belong the Tableaux dorés, composed of silvered or gilded aluminum foils on painted bases. The work is presented in a frame.

The Mask

Oil on canvas. The painting reproduces in rather detail the work of the same name painted in 1869 by the Emilian painter Gaetano Chierici, an artist who became famous for a large production of scenes of peasant life, captured in rustic interiors, interpreted through an intimate sentimental adhesion and a clear formal realism, which tell of a small happy and always serene world, indeed often joyful despite poverty, because devoid of any intent of social denunciation, but rather representative of the happy conception of family that the artist had. These paintings of his had such success with the bourgeoisie of the time, that they were replicated several times by the artist's own workshop and subsequently also by other painters. Chierici almost always set the scene inside a humble peasant kitchen, full of objects described in minute detail, populated by children intent on their daily activities, by adults who watch them happily and amused: here we see the child who suddenly enters the kitchen, wearing a grotesque mask on his face and thus frightening his little sister, who abandons her food to run and cling to the skirts of her mother, intent on the hearth, who scolds her son brandishing the ladle. The work is presented in a carved and gilded wooden frame from the late 19th century.

The Country Road 1905

Oil on canvas. signed and dated lower right. The Hungarian painter Antal Berkes painted landscapes in the early years of his career, but later devoted himself to glimpses and views of cities, Budapest, Paris, Vienna. This painting still belongs to the first production, proposing the view of a country road, which passes through a forest where some farmhouses are located; on the dirt road there is a cart pulled by horses. The painting is presented in a period frame.

Tarasp Castle 1960

Oil on cardboard. Signed and dated lower right. The Roman artist Cesare Maggi established himself as a landscape painter of the divisionist style, portraying Alpine landscapes of the Engadine and Aosta Valley, often enlivened by the inclusion of figures and animals. Having become friends with the painter Giacomo Grosso in Turin in 1901, he then successfully turned to the portrait genre, setting aside the divisionist technique. Although he still preferred high mountain views, he expanded his subjects by also working on marine and still life paintings. Shown here is the snow-covered glimpse of Tarasp Castle, an 11th-century fortress in Lower Engadine, Switzerland. This is a late work by the artist, who remained attached to his favorite subject, the Alpine landscape, until the end, despite having now abandoned the divisionist technique of his early period. The work is presented in a period frame.

Oil on canvas. Looking at the compositions of the 17th-18th century, the painting proposes a composition of variegated and colorful flowers, which surmount a sculpture of three fauns and a cut pumpkin. It is presented in a contemporary frame.