Ars Antiqua Wall Decorations

Nineteenth century Evaluation of the art expert Measures: Oil on canvas, 97 x 77 cm Frame 112 x 92 cm Signed "Morselli" The canvas depicts a young married couple intent o...

Adele Pinot (1848), by Guido Reni (Bologna, 1575 - 1642) Madonna Adoring the Sleeping Child Oil on canvas, 97 x 107 cm Signed lower right "Adele Pinot 1848" The canvas examined depicts the Madonna and Child, caught in a moment of great tenderness and intimacy. Wrapped in a brilliant luminosity, the little Jesus is depicted in the foreground comfortably lying on some soft drapes. The face appears peacefully asleep and is framed by blond curls; the complexion is white and the legs, just curled up and slightly bent at the knee, help to accentuate the naturalness and sweetness of the composition. Full of tenderness and maternal love, the figure of the Madonna appears, with delicate features and a head covered by a veil, which, placed at three quarters, is totally attracted to the contemplation of her little son. The high quality that can be found in the execution of the figures is also emphasized in the rendering of the soft drapery and in the careful attention to detail. The work, created in 1848 by the French artist Adele Pinot, re-elaborates the famous Madonna in adoration of the Child by Guido Reni (Bologna, 1575 - 1642) now preserved in the Doria Pamphilj...

17th century, Emilian school Rural landscape with gallant scenes Oil on canvas, 37 x 47.5 cm With frame 61 x 50.5 cm The bucolic amenity of the present is reflected in the joyful gallant scenes that dot its surface. The locus amoenus described reflects on the more traditional inflection of Arcadia, which in the literary transfiguration was the scenario par excellence of the most carefree pastoral life and out of this world; the painting is therefore a forerunner of what was professed by the actual poetic academy of Arcadia which was established in Rome in 1690, but enthusiastically testifies to the feverish invitations to its acceptance, then widespread in the most avant-garde cultural salons throughout Italy. First Theocritus and Virgil later had awakened with Idilli and Bucoliche that capacity typical of the natural world to allow an escape from reality; the contemplation of perfect natural fruits that followed would have evoked in the spirits of dreaming men back to origins. The bucolic landscape was able to positively give a rhythm to material life, and constituted the concretization of a place devoid of incivility and ugliness, where only dreams, wild music and homages to fruitful nature were allowed. In the present painting widespread figures of shepherd children trace the same intent to the sublimation of earthly life, gathered in pairs, while children on the model of the ancient cherubs cheer the field with flowers and petals. The games of these and the sweet affections of the other characters are rendered through liquid and vibrant brushstrokes, flickering with a white light that opposes the dark shadow of the undergrowth. In the distance, the sky tapers with a silvery and flat brushstroke, while the vertical development of the promoters with architectures helps to introject a bright beam of light into the grassy clearing. The foliage and the turf of the landscape piece are rendered through a digital brushstroke, betraying the Italian brand of the present, influenced at the same time by the seventeenth-century European influences that then conveyed to the capital. The evocative culture of the city attracted many artists from the city of Bologna, from the Italian north but also from the territories beyond the Alps, such as Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin. The historical-artistic heritage of the Italian pastoral scenes was thus able to fill up with the more functional and particular formalisms of the charms coming from elsewhere, such as the expressive tremor of the present, similar to the contemporary French lexicon. The typological restitution from pastoral idyll, in accordance with the intrinsic stylistic qualities of the work, allows us to specify the solid belonging of the present to the Italian hand, similarly to what was then emerging in the pictorial sphere within the Emilian school. In this regard, we should recall the latent influences of two decisive foreign landscape painters who passed through the Emilian belt, such as Claude Lorrain (1600-1682) and Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665); before them, Giovanni Battista Viola...

Francesco Fergola (Naples, 1801 - there, 1875) Pair of Views of Pompeii Tempera on paper, 33 x 48 cm Frame 49 x 64 cm The two views in question are signed by Francesco F...

Nineteenth century Marine view Oil on canvas, 74.5 x 100.5 cm Frame 100 x 126 cm The arrival of the storm is announced on the left side of the canvas by the presence of r...

Circle of Antonio Amorosi (Comunanza, 1660 - Rome, 1738) Portrait of young people Oil on canvas, 87 x 67 cm The painting depicting this portrait was made by an artist activ...

Circle of Nicolaes Berchem (1620, Haarlem - 1683, Amsterdam) Architectural capriccio with herds Oil on canvas, 57.5 x 74 cm With frame 76 x 93 cm The examined canvas is...

John Califano (Rome, 1864 - Chicago, 1924) Snowy mountainous landscape Oil on canvas, 74 x 90 cm With frame 90 x 107 cm Signed lower right ...

Marco De Gregorio (Resin, 1829 - 1876) Procession Oil on canvas, 53 x 44 cm Frame 55.5 x 46 cm The work can be attributed to the hand of Marco De Gregorio (1829-1876) painter born in Resina (now Herculaneum, in the province of Naples). He attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples where he was especially interested in historical painting. In 1858 he hosted the landscape painter Federico Rossano in his home in Portici and starting from 1863 the two painter friends, together with the young Apulian Giuseppe De Nittis and the Tuscan Adriano Cecioni, gave life to the artistic movement called Scuola di Resìna, to which various artists, including Raffaele Belliazzi, Alceste Campriani, Antonino Leto and Edoardo Dalbono. The motifs of the painting of the Resìna School were similar to those of the Tuscan school of Pergentina, to which Raffaello Sernesi, Giuseppe Abbati and Silvestro Lega...

Attr. to Girolamo Siciolante known as da Sermoneta (Sermoneta, 1521 - Rome, 1575) Adoration of the Shepherds Oil on copper, 39 x 29.5 cm Frame 47 x 39 cm The refined taste, the refined poses, the definition of the anatomies, the vibrant light, allow us to identify for this painting the hand of a Mannerist painter active during the sixteenth century. In particular, the composition and stylistic research allow us to attribute the panel to Girolamo Siciolante, known as da Sermoneta (1521 - 1575). His first training took place under the guidance of Leonardo Grazia known as da Pistoia (1502 - 1548). Later he settled in Rome where he was able to see the painting of Raphael and Michelangelo from life and where he was first a pupil and then a collaborator of Perin del Vaga...

I. Reneman (Netherlands, active in the second half of the 18th century) Parrot with cherubs and flowers Oil on canvas, 100.5 x 84.5 cm Signed on the base “I. Reneman fecit...

Roman school, 18th century The Sacrifice of Iphigenia Oil on canvas, Measures: 50 x 64.5 cm The canvas depicts The Sacrifice of Iphigenia, a theme reported by numerous sources, including the Greek tragedies Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides and Agamemnon by Aeschylus, as well as in Ovid's Metamorphoses. The myth tells how the Greeks, under the command of Agamemnon, gathered at the city of Aulis, in Boeotia, from which they then set sail for Troy. The persistent calm of the winds, however, prevents the Greek ships...

Attributed to Giacomo Ceruti (Milan, 1698-1767) Portrait of Felice Paganoni Oil on canvas, 98.5 x 73 cm With frame, 109 x 85 x 4 cm "Felice Pag...

Area of ??Giovanni Battista Ruoppolo (Naples, 1629 - 1697) Still life with fruit and little bird Measures: Oil on canvas, 62 x 83 cm The still life in question shows juicy citrus fruits, among which we can recognize oranges and cedars, together with red berries scattered on the ground. A cheerful little bird rests on the edge of a terracotta pot in which some pink-mottled carnations grow. The landscape that can be observed all around is veiled by clouds and shaded by shrubs, while in the distance there is a green hill. Dominating the foreground and standing out from the dark background is the fruit which, lush and juicy, stands out in the vivacity of the colors in contrast with the dark background. The full-bodied brushstroke that delineates the wrinkled peel of citrus fruits to restore the realism of the fruit, just as the green leaves of the stems softly folded on themselves are sketched with extreme truthfulness, they ascribe the work to a painter working in the circle of Giovanni Battista Ruoppolo. Ruoppolo is a Neapolitan artist, specialized in the genre of still life, indeed De Dominici himself in his Lives of Neapolitan painters, sculptors and architects recognizes him a primary role in the Neapolitan school of the genre. He studied, together with Giuseppe Recco (1634 -?), In the workshop of Paolo Porpora (1617 - 1673). He painted almost exclusively fruit and flower paintings...

Attr. Jacobus or Iacomo Victors (Amsterdam c. 1640 - 1705) Still life with birds Oil on canvas, 112 x 133 cm The still life examined here is a rare example of the simultaneous presence of live and dead animals in a single composition. On two rocky levels different ornithological species are neatly arranged, reproduced with the utmost fidelity and adherence to life. Mallards, doves, sparrows and a partridge placed on their backs can be recognized. The soft mantles with different chromatic tones, with the characteristic streaks and spots of color, together with the precise investigation of the various ornithological typologies, denote an observation of the real datum typical of the seventeenth-century Flemish tradition. Another mallard, this time alive, seems to have just settled on the rock, as if to observe the rich composition moving its neck. Its characteristic colors, the bright green of the head and the upper part of the neck, the yellow of the beak and the orange of the legs characterize the painting and capture the viewer's attention. The flight of the dove in the foreground is splendid, seen from above, the virtuosic pose and the brightness of its feathers, in an elegant modulation of grays tending to white, denote the stylistic quality of this work. It was probably created by a Flemish artist working in Italy in the second half of the seventeenth century: close analogies can be found with the game of Jacobus Victor...

19th century Castel Sant'Angelo Oil on canvas, 49 x 58.5 cm The analyzed painting portrays a pleasant view of the city of Rome. Taken from the bank of the Tiber, Castel Sant'A...

XVIII century Views of Rome (9) Tempera on paper, 9 x 14 cm; with frame 34 x 40 cm During the seventeenth century the fashion of the Grand Tour spread among the aristocracy, a ...

Roman school, late 16th-early 17th century Praying Madonna Oil on canvas, 81 x 69 cm Frame 83 x 95.5 cm A divine whiteness reverberates with vibrant luster on the maphorion of the present Virgin. The palpable iridescence that structures the thin rosaceous garment, woven with the same fresh light, produces a slight rustle when she takes her hands off. The Madonna in fact takes a prayerful pose, opening her palms to underline her fervent ecstatic intention; the white neck is rendered with perishable fullness of pigments, like the hands, perfectly alive, and the very shiny eyes. With fine shrewdness the artist of the present styles the Virgin's hair with thin white ribbons, exacerbating the purity. An evocative light falls gently on the bust, a materialized sign of divine glory. The present can be traced back to the late Mannerist climate that prevailed in the capital after the emanation of the Tridentine council (1545-1563). The late Mannerist licenses that can still be seen there, such as the intense lyricism in the stylistic code adopted by the artist, are innervated in the new basic catechetical intent, which at the end of the century produced a certain figurative rigorism. The present, however, still responds to that extraordinary Roman dynamism that raised the capital to a bulwark for the entire mannerist lesson, matched only by a second artistic center, the Florentine one. The engaging carriage of the Virgin reflects the contemporary examples of Giuseppe Valeriano (1542-1596), a Jesuit painter, returning in the Marriage of the Virgin of the Roman Church of Jesus, as well as in the Madonna of Sorrows in the Recanati Altarpiece, equal ardor. But it is in the Assumption of the Virgin painted in four hands with Scipione Pulzone...

Circle of Simone Cantarini known as the Pesarese (Pesaro, 1612 - Verona, 1648) St. Joseph Oil on canvas, 62 x 48 cm Frame 80 x 64 cm The sty...

XVIII century St. Francis receives the stigmata Oil on canvas, 97 x 75.5 cm.

XVIII century Rural scenes (4) Tempera on paper, 20 x 31 cm With 18th century Venetian mirrored frame, 31 x 39 cm.

Painter active in Rome (late 17th century) Coastal landscape and ships under repair Oil on canvas, 113 x 143 cm With frame 125 x 159 This fantasy coastal view can be attributed to a foreign painter active in Italy between the 17th and 18th centuries. The Italianizing taste, in our case deduced from the models of Agostino Tassi and especially from the examples of Gaspare Vanvitelli...

Domenico Carnevale (Sassuolo, 1524 - Modena, 1579) Adoration of the Shepherds Oil on copper, 42 x 28 cm Frame 54 x 36 cm Expert opinion of Prof. Emilio Negro The painting represents the Adoration of the Shepherds, the Child in the center, next to the Madonna kneeling in prayer and an angel behind her; towards him in the foreground a woman with a child in her arms, a shepherd with a sheep on the right, a bagpiper on the left and various other male and female characters turn to him. The architectures of the background, between which a glimpse of the landscape can be glimpsed, are hidden in the upper part by the clouds, where a "celestial glory" encamps with three flying angels. The painting shows mannerist characters that can be traced back to the second half of the sixteenth century, and can be traced back to an author from the Modena area, with stylistic references to the Bolognese Samacchini (1532 - 1577) and Passerotti (1529 - 1592). More precisely, it can be attributed to Domenico Carnevale (1524-1579), one of the most important masters of the sixteenth century active in the local area. The Carnival was formed in Emilia, his homeland, where he worked for many years. However, his works also show a clear Roman influence, dictated by a long experience in the city, during which he also dedicated himself to the restoration of the Sistine Chapel. Trained in the late-mannerist environment of Modena, he is also linked to the Parmesan Corrorese and Ferrarese Dossesque tradition; Carnival also always maintains a slight archaic sentiment in his work, The main stylistic reference must be identified in a work similar in subject and iconographic setting, coming from the church of the Pio Istituto Orfanelle di San Geminiano di Modena, currently part of the Art Collection of the Province, attributed to the same influence as the Carnival. Another interesting comparison should be identified with A Presentation of Jesus in the Temple...

Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki (Danzig, 1726 - Berlin, 1801) Interior scene with concert Oil on canvas, 42 X 34 cm With frame 57 x 49 x 6 cm Already attributed to Pietro Longhi, the ...

Giovanni Crivelli known as Crivellino (Milan,? - Parma, 1760) Fight between dogs and bison Oil on canvas, 84 x 111 cm With frame 112 x 139 cm Thanks to the comparison with h...

Aldo Conti (Milan, 1890 - there, 1988). Porta Venezia Charcoal, pastel and white lead drawing on cardboard, 29 x 38 cm Signed and titled lower right.

Peter Götz Pallmann (Berlin, 1908 - 1966) Santa Trìnita bridge in Florence Oil on canvas applied to wood, 35 x 40 cm Frame 45.5 x 50.5 cm Signe...

Venetian school, 18th century Study with the head of a cherub Measures: Oil on canvas, 45.5 x 41 cm - with frame 54.5 x 49.5 cm The present qualifies as a study or preparatory sketch by virtue of the structural and figural layout; by reason of formal and substantial evidence, it can be traced back to the mature neo-Venetian style, which in the eighteenth century had begun to produce figurations of extreme typological pathetism and formal expressionism. The contemporary painting experience of Tiepolo commanded the Venetian art scene, once the lesson of Pier Francesco Mola (1612-1666) was overruled. The delicate putto head offered here, in which a cherub is recognizable due to the happy iconographic solution of the wings placed under the angel's face, is outlined with a vigorous vitalism. A foreshortened point of view illuminates his face in a grazing way, probing his features with strong shadows and with a youthful blush that orange his cheeks. The veristic perfection with which the artist arranges the semblant is of marvelous expressiveness. The eyes are swollen with intensity, and together with the general setting of the head they denounce a conscious reflection on the physiognomy, peculiar within the emerging context of Venetian painting. The painting in question is affected by the large-scale productions, both monumental and perspective, at the time in vogue in the territory of the Serenissima. Conceived through a vision from below, the portrait reveals from the Venetian Rococo that particular predilection for the open and clear, airy ways, denounced in the first instance by Tiepolo. The conscious detachment from the Cortona-style decorativism and from the repeated layout solutions then in vogue allow us to approach the present to the production of Francesco Fontebasso...