PAINTINGS OF THE '900
 

Trees in the Snow, 1978

Oil painting on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. The painting, coming from a private collection in Pavia, is published on page 73 of Simona Morani's monograph dedicated to the artist Primo Carena (Bolis editions), with the presentation signed by the art critic Rossana Bossaglia. The lake landscape well expresses the subdued intimacy associated with the rigorous realism that characterize the pictorial production of the painter from Pavia. In his landscapes Carena tends "to capture the atmospheric reality of the places without indulging in descriptivism... but constantly supported by a lyrical vein, which is the underlying motif of all his production". The work is presented in a style frame. It is published on page 75 of Simona Morani's monograph dedicated to the artist Primo Carena (Bolis editions), with the presentation signed by the art critic Rossana Bossaglia. The landscape well expresses the subdued intimacy associated with the rigorous realism that characterize the pictorial production of the painter from Pavia. In his landscapes Carena tends "to capture the atmospheric reality of the places without indulging in descriptivism... but constantly supported by a lyrical vein, which is the underlying motif of all his production". The work is presented in a period frame.

San Pietro in Verzolo

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower right. The painting, coming from a private collection in Pavia, is published on page 70 of Simona Morani's monograph dedicated to the artist Primo Carena (Bolis editions), with the presentation signed by the art critic Rossana Bossaglia. On the back there is a stamp of participation of the work in the artist's personal exhibition at the Castello Visconteo in Pavia in 1992. The landscape, a stretch of countryside with a backdrop of hills, well expresses the subdued intimacy associated with the rigorous realism that characterizes the production pictorial work by the painter from Pavia. In his landscapes Carena tends "to capture the atmospheric reality of the places without indulging in descriptivism... but constantly supported by a lyrical vein, which is the underlying motif of all his production". The work is presented in a period frame. on page 66 of Simona Morani's monograph dedicated to the artist Primo Carena (Bolis editions), with the presentation signed by the art critic Rossana Bossaglia. On the back there is a stamp of participation of the work in the artist's personal exhibition at the Castello Visconteo in Pavia in 1992. The view of the small village on the outskirts of Pavia, seen from the countryside, well expresses the subdued intimacy associated with the rigorous realism that characterizes the production pictorial work by the painter from Pavia. In his landscapes Carena tends" to capture the atmospheric reality of the places without indulging in descriptivism... but constantly supported by a lyrical vein, which is the underlying motif of all his production". The work is presented in a period frame.

Philosopher

Oil on cardboard. Signed lower right. Coming from a private collection in Pavia. The painting proposes a subject taken up several times by Primo Carena, both with groups of several characters inserted in a landscape, and with a solitary figure as appears in this painting, which belongs to the production of the 1950s. The man on the beach, in the seated pose leaning with his elbow on a marble capital, and in the cloth resting on his legs, recalls the elderly character sitting in a work by De Chirico, the Salute to the Argonauts, and well underlies the reference to painting metaphysics that the painter from Pavia wanted to express in his figure paintings of the 1950s and 1960s. The work is presented in a frame.

Bronze plaque with bas-relief figure. The figure of a naked man is depicted, holding an arrow and aiming it at the center of a target: the symbolism is evident, that is, the exaltation of the determination of the man who must go straight to the target; this meaning is well suited to the fascist period to which the plaque dates back, as is the reference to classicism. The plaque is inserted and presented in a contemporary wooden frame.

Winter scene

Oil painting on canvas. Italian school of the early 1900s. The large scene is set in a desolate landscape completely covered in snow: on the left in the foreground, behind a group of carts and mobile homes (probably a gypsy camp) a woman cries while peeking out from behind a cloth; observe the figures moving away from the center of the scene, only silhouettes but clearly definable: two gendarmes flank a man in plain clothes, evidently under arrest. A street lamp and some dry and bare trees occupy the space on the right. The whole scene, painted with broad brushstrokes and without contours, is dominated by the greyish-white shades of the snow, the gray sky, the indistinct peaks in the background, or rather all the naturalistic elements, including one of the two horses tied to rest, while the other elements, the figures, the house, the street lamps, the other horse, and also the footprints on the snow that trace the path of the three figures in the distance, are characterized by brown and ocher colours, rather dull: the whole underlines the drama of the scene, perhaps also the desperation and sense of loneliness and abandonment of the woman. Restored and relined, the painting is not signed on the front (possible signature on the back covered by the relining?). The painting is presented in a period frame.

Glimpse of the Cloister of the Dome of Monreale

Mixed technique, with canvas, wooden panels, metal threads, small beads, etc. At the bottom center is the artist's name, unidentified. It is a three-dimensional and perspective reconstruction of the cloister of the Monreale Cathedral, with the fountain in the foreground. The work is presented in a display case with a gilded frame from the early 1900s.

Composition on 4 Panels, 1978

Mixed media on canvas applied to wooden panels, showing a sequence. On the lower right the artist's initials GB and the numbering of the panels; on the verso of each panel is the signature in full, with the date and the following sequential titles: 'By Bosch', 'Declination of an Owl', 'Transcription' and 'Disappearance for Coquetry'. Gabriella Benedini has defined her as an artist as 'a nomad in search of the profound meaning of things'. Although attracted and interested first by abstract-informal painting, then by Existential Realism and then by the New Figuration, Gabriella Benedini proceeds on a strictly personal quest that cannot be assimilated into any specific current. The entire 1970s were mainly marked by pictorial works that reflected literary cues filtered through her need for growth and confrontation. Then, through her passion for Alchemy, Benedini began to transform anything that came her way into works of art; shells, pages of old books, bottles, everything is combined into a harmonious whole that recalls spaces. Her works therefore become mainly three-dimensional, either to hang on the wall, or they are sculptures, even large ones. The four panels are presented here in a single frame.

City Glimpse

Oil on wood. Signed on the back. Riccardo Viriglio, a landscape painter from Pavia, portrayed urban views mainly of his city and landscape views especially of Lombardy. Here too there is a view of a city square with a portico. In a stylish frame.

Landscape with Shepeherds and Ruins

Oil on wood. Signed lower right. Antonio Oberto, a post-impressionist painter from Pavia, dedicated himself to landscapes but also to the decorations of public buildings in his city. He mainly proposed views of Pavia and the Pavia countryside along the Ticino, depicted, through rapid brushstrokes, in a late nineteenth-century style. A large landscape is proposed here along the river, precisely the Ticino in its flat stretch, precisely the one that borders the city of Pavia; in the foreground, on the right the remains of neoclassical structures, on the left two shepherds with their flock. The work is presented in a period frame.

Rovereto, 1920

Oil on the table. Signed lower left. The title and date on the back in pencil. Riccardo Viriglio, a landscape painter from Pavia, portrayed urban views mainly of his city and landscape views especially of Lombardy. Here is a glimpse of the village of Roveleto, a small village in the Piacenza countryside at the foot of the pre-Apennine hills. The work is presented in a frame.

Mountain Cabins

Oil on wood. signed lower right. Mario Moretti Foggia lived and worked until his death in Macugnaga, the mountain town in the Ossola Valley that he often depicted in his works, often offering glimpses of mountain huts in the valleys as in this work. Trained at the school of Tallone, Moretti Foggia was predominantly a landscape painter, who proposed realistic views characterized by a very bright and material chromatic palette. The work is presented in a period frame.

The Portrait of the Queen

Oil painting on canvas. At the bottom right there is an unidentified signature. The large canvas presents an interior scene, set in an eighteenth-century court: in the richly furnished room with velvet curtains, sculptures and large paintings on the walls, a queen (identified by her ermine-edged cloak) poses for the painter who is her portrait, surrounded by the court, smiling ladies and gentlemen, and a prelate, who instead seems rather dissatisfied. The work looks at the production of the painter Arturo Ricci (1854 -1919), who specialized in genre scenes set in eighteenth-century courts. The painting is presented in a frame assembled with elements from the early 1900s.

Roman Landscape

Oil painting on canvas. signed lower left. Further signature and title on the back. Born and lived in Rome, Sdruscia was an interpreter of the so-called Roman School, mainly creating glimpses of his city, in a pictorial style that looks to the great masters of the period, such as Guidi and De Pisis. The work is presented in a frame.

Woman at the Spinning Wheel

Tempera on paper. Signed lower left. Probably a sketch, due to the rapid drafting and unfinished contours, this work presents a young woman sitting spinning at a spinning wheel. The artist Gino Simonetti, painter but also writer, born in the Piacenza area, lived and worked mainly in Turin. the work is presented in a period frame.

Landscape with River Glimpse 1906

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower left. The Roman-born artist Cesare Maggi established himself as a pointillist landscape painter, portraying alpine landscapes in the Engadine and Aosta Valley, often enlivened by the inclusion of figures and animals. Becoming a friend of the painter Giacomo Grosso in Turin in 1901, he then successfully oriented himself towards the portrait genre, setting aside the pointillist technique. While still favoring high mountain views, he broadened his subjects by also engaging in seascapes and still lifes. In this work, still from the first period, Maggi portrays a glimpse of the countryside crossed by a calm river, bordered by rows of bare trees and small grassy hills, behind which the farmhouses overlook: already no longer linked to the techniques divisionist, the work is rather characterized by dense and opaque mixtures of color, in which the earth, the water and the farmhouses are superimposed in a continuum broken only by the band of sky above. The work is presented in a period frame.

The path of San Rocco (Camogli)

Oil on cardboard. Signed lower left. On the back this title in pencil. An extremely original landscape painter who experimented with oil painting but also with watercolors and engraving, Raul Viviani came very close to pointillist painting, however developing his own personal technique, characterized by very thin filaments of color in the shape of thin commas, which define the structures of his landscapes. With his transfer to Liguria, which made the landscape of that region the protagonist of his works, his technique changed, moving away from the original divisionism to open up to a broad and summary brushstroke, which finally resulted in the last period in a production of nature death with violent and contrasting colors. This landscape can also be placed in the Ligurian period, which offers a glimpse of a well-known Ligurian locality, still rendered in the characteristic style of Viviani, made of brushstrokes in thin filaments, superimposed on spots of lively color, in the chromatic ranges of the colors of nature. In frame.

Portrait of a young commoner

Oil on canvas applied to the table. Signed lower right. Antonio Vallone, a Neapolitan painter close to Morelli's school, specialized in genre portraits, above all of smiling young men and women, street urchins or peasant women typical of his homeland. The work is presented in a period frame.

Interior scene

Oil painting on canvas. Not signed, but on the back there is a dedication "Alla signora Clelia Mazzioli, con stima Gaetano Bellei 23 gennaio 1909". The big scene, set in a popular kitchen, sees a woman reading cards to two girls, who ask for explanations by pointing to the figures that appear and seem to compare them with a text leaning on the chair. The work recalls the painting of Gaetano Bellei, due to the strong realism with which the painter painted above all scenes of daily peasant life; he is considered a master of the depiction of human affections and of human reactions and sensations. The painting has slight drops of color. It is proposed in a stylish frame.

Figure in Rest 1969

Pen on paper. Signed lower right. Accompanied by photo authentication from the Mario Tozzi Archive. In Maestro Tozzi's extensive production there are many drawings, such as this one presented here, made with different techniques (ink, pastel, pencil, sanguine), dedicated to the human figure: in his dry and stylized style, Mario Tozzi outlines stylized, refined figurines in their silent and discreet geometry, favored by the absence of color, which brings out the forms on the white paper. Even in his pictorial production, Mario Tozzi's favorite subjects are, classically, figures and still lifes, but both figures and death are a set of solid geometric elements, the sphere, the cylinder, the cone, etc. The bodies are elementary, essential in the lines and details, powerful, statuesque, composed of just modeled solids, while the still lifes are a celebration of Euclidean geometry such as the jugs, bowls, flasks which are paradigms of volume and geometric rigor . Mario Tozzi's compositions are influenced by Cubism for certain cuts, by Metaphysics for certain architectural insertions and by Abstractism for the insertion of geometric figures. The work is presented in a frame.