Painting Still Life with Flowers and Pumpkin

Oil on canvas. English school of the late 19th-early 20th century. Signed Drummonds lower left. The scene, set in the countryside, features an elderly farmer who, having stopped working in the fields, as indicated by the two draft horses harnessed to the plow behind him, reads a letter with the help of a young woman, while a small girl offers wild flowers to her mother. The letterhead reads the incipit "Dear father"; on the ground is the envelope with an address to England. The familiar scene evokes the tenderness of the young woman towards the elderly man, probably her father-in-law, with whom she shares the joy of the news received from the dear distant one. The work is presented in a golden frame from the mid-20th 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.

Oil on canvas. Central European school of the late 19th-early 20th century. Unidentified signature lower right. Green countryside landscape with leafy trees in autumn colors and a chalet in the center; on the wide path on the right, which leads to a lake, the figures of a woman and a child pass. The light of the blue sky, but already veiled on the horizon by the first crepuscular colors, creates a relaxed and serene atmosphere. The painting is presented in a period frame.

Allegory

Oil on canvas. Signed lower left. The large painting features two figures: on the right a man sitting at a table, dressed in a red dressing gown, with a sad and concentrated expression, playing with his hands with some disheveled flowers, coming from the composition on his head; on the left standing the Christ of the Passion, crowned with thorns, with a gray cloak on his shoulders. Behind the seated man, a leaden sky in which, however, a ray of light opens. The painting probably wants to allegorically depict the painful and suffered end of the life of a person, who lives the same Passion as Christ, but who yearns for a new, bright life. The work is presented in a frame.

Oil on canvas. French school of the early 1900s. At the bottom right the signature Carlo Rossi, on the left the title in French ("Duels et enlèvement"). The scene, which recalls the narrative of the "Cloak and sword" genre, sees a gentleman in an elegant doublet dueling with a group of men, who are meanwhile trying to take away his lady by force. The scene is set in the street of a village with Nordic-style houses. The painter Carlo Rossi was active in France at the end of the 19th century, as can be seen from another of his works of the same genre, sold at auction in Tours. The painting is presented in a period frame.

Oil on hardboard. Venetian school of the late 19th century. Signed Carlini on the lower left. Moving family scene, with the fisherman just landed embracing his family - wife, mother, children and dog! - who have come to welcome him, while his colleagues unload the catch and arrange the nets. The colors are intense, especially the earthy ones of the figures, the sand and the boat, which contrast with the blue of the sky and the sea. The painting is presented in a period frame.

Mountain Glimpse, 1926

Oil painting on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. A large mountain landscape glimpse is proposed, certainly Alpine, in which figures of shepherds move, walking on the path with their animals. Annibale Scaroni dedicated himself to portraiture and landscape, favoring views of the surroundings of Bormio, places dear to him. Scaroni maintained his own pictorial style free from the artistic currents that developed in the century; the lively colors and the play of light and shadow stand out in the work, rendered with broad and decisive brushstrokes.

Oil painting on canvas. Central European school of the first half of the 20th century. Unidentified signature lower left. Sweetness and tenderness shine through these two embraced figures, similar in facial features and expression, composed in their elegant and lively clothes, with the background of a floral wallpaper. The painting is presented in a period frame.

Oil painting on canvas. The composition looks at the productions of the 17th century and offers a table richly laden with fruit trays, baskets of cherries, baskets with peaches and bunches of grapes with decorative vine leaves, terrines with seeds, and glasses, surmounted by a curtain and placed on a fabric. Color was used in a highly material manner in some points, to underline for example the stems of grape leaves, or to create reflections of light on the fruit. The painting presented in a style frame.

The Organ-Grinder

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower right. Trace of a date, not readable. The Cuneo artist Ottavio Steffanini had a life in constant movement, divided between Italy, Europe, America (in particular Venezuela). A restless and unpredictable artist, he concentrated his painting above all on female figures, portrayed with placid sensuality and an opulence influenced by the Spanish masters with whom he studied. But in his production there is no shortage of other subjects, united by an incessant exaltation of life, of nature. Here, however, a male figure is proposed, a half-length portrait of an accordion player, dignified and proud in his pose and gaze. The work is presented in a period frame.

Mixed media on canvas. The large scene, painted in the unique reddish-pink range, features two large figures on the right, while the entire left side is occupied by a desert landscape, with the waves of the dunes fading into the distance. The two figures depict a seated horseman, wearing a turban and Saracen dress, being fed by a maiden in Western dress, who is handing him a tray laden with food, while on the shelf below is a basin of water, ears of corn and various fruits. This could be one of the many representations of the story of Angelica and Medoro, recounted by Ariosto in Orlando Furioso, which tells of the love between the Christian maiden and the Saracen knave wounded in a clash, who then fled together to Catai, thus triggering Orlando's madness. The work is presented in a frame.

In Brianza

Oil painting on canvas. At the bottom left there is the DB monogram. Title and gallery stamp on the back. The glimpse of the Brianza countryside, still flat, sees a shepherd who lets his cows graze in the meadows immediately outside the village, near the dirt road flanked by light poles; two bare and thin trunks stand vertically, almost parallel, dividing the scene into three shots. The work is presented in a coeval frame.