Queen Louise of Prussia

Painted porcelain tile. Berlin, last quarter of the 19th century. The delicate porcelain portrays Queen Louise of Prussia (1776 -1810). The queen is dressed in a white dress edged in gold, in the Empire style, while on one shoulder she carries a blue cloak lined with ermine; her blond hair is gathered and held back by a gold diadem. Louise is descending the steps of a classical building: the base and the lower part of a tapered column can be glimpsed, just as the herms in the background look to the ancient world, while in the background a wooded landscape can be seen. The porcelain is marked on the back with the royal sceptre accompanied by the initials “KPM”, also impressed with “255-195”, “h” and monogram. The painting is signed Wagner. Presented in a contemporary frame richly carved with scrolls and entirely gilded.

Mixed media on cardboard. Portrait of a young woman who appears to be in mourning, both due to her completely black clothing and her sad and understood look. Painted in the style of the early 1900s, a period to which the woman's dress also refers. At the bottom right there is an undeciphered signature. It is presented in a stylish frame.

Mixed media on paper. Delicate oval portrait of a young man, whose face and hair fade into the pastel colors of the background, which seems to be one with his figure. The work is presented in a contemporary frame.

Oil on canvas. Venetian school of the eighteenth century. The portrait proposes the figure of a young woman wearing an everyday dress, but embellished with spotted fur edges; curiously, with the raised arm she flaunts a fur muff tucked over one hand, probably a habit to underline a fashion of the time. The painting shows signs of restoration, with conservation of the original canvas, although reassembled on a new frame. It is presented in a coeval oval frame, but surmounted by a wooden frieze added at a later time.

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

Portraits of Children, 1930

Photographs retouched with pastels. Signed bottom right. On the back of three of them is the date 11 November 1930. A photographic sequence of the portrait of three children is shown, who slightly change their pose or expression. They are the work of the British photographer Eva Barrett who, after an initial experience as a painter, decided to dedicate herself to photography, thinking that "it was better to be a first-rate photographer than a second-rate [painter]. Having moved to Rome in 1913, she established her laboratory here. Pictorialist, with a small camera, Eva Barrett created her own photographic method that was reminiscent of drawing sketches: she applied a few very light pencil strokes, managing to create subdued images but with particularly dense blacks, thus maintaining the characteristics of photography and portraits. In this way he was very successful and his career took off. Eva Barrett photographed the Italian royal family, the wives and children of foreign ambassadors, as well as received numerous commissions from European royalty in Belgium, Sweden, Greece. The four portraits are presented in style frames.

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.

Oil painting on canvas. Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Augustus is one of the Eleven Roman Emperors who were portrayed half-length in a series created by Titian in 1536-40 for Frederick II, Duke of Mantua. Passed first to the English royal house and then to the Spanish court, the paintings were all destroyed in a catastrophic fire at the Royal Alcazar of Madrid in 1734 and are now known only from copies made by various Flemish engravers between the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century. Among these, we have received the engraving of the portrait of Vitellius made by Aegidius Sadeler (1570 -1629), compared to which our copy presents some small differences, as was usual when works by other great artists were copied. The emperor, characterized by a prominent nose, thin lips, plump cheeks and a double chin, holds the staff of command and wears armor with a red cloak over it. The painting has been restored and relined.

Signed J.M de Medeiros

Oil painting on canvas. Along the right margin there is a dedication in Portuguese "Ill'.. Offerece Agradecide (with gratitude)", with the signature JM De Medeiros and the date 1875. The work can be traced back to the Brazilian painter De Medeiros, of whom he only knows that he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro in 1885. The painting presents the portrait of an elderly man, with a flowing beard, a serious and concentrated gaze on something distant, and dressed in a tunic and pallium, therefore evocative the figure of a thinker or philosopher of antiquity. The work has patches on the back. It is presented in a contemporary frame,

Oil painting on canvas. Northern European school of the late 19th century. Unidentified signature lower right. The portrait presents a child in a maritime context: he is sitting on a rock on a beach, by the sea, he is dressed like a sailor and is holding a small toy sailing ship in his hand. The child is rather prim and serious. The painting has slight tears in the canvas and color stains. It is presented in an imposing late 19th century frame, with several missing and damaged plaster decorations.

The Joachim Quartet 1904

Etching. Signed lower right; additional signature and date on the top corner of the sheet music. This is a famous portrait taken by the Viennese photographer and engraver Ferdinand Schmutzer, of the musical quartet directed by maestro Joseph Joachim (1831 -1907), famous Hungarian violinist, composer and conductor. Among the famous portraits painted by Schmutzer are those of Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud and Richard Strauss. The work is presented in a frame.

Wooden sculptures. It is a composition of two wooden heads, a male one and a female one, placed on a board and framed by a gilded frame of 19th century. The heads might had been the handles of a canteran of 17th century.

Penci, charcoal and white lead on paper. Signed E. Bianchi at the bottom left. Very effective is the use of different pigments that creates a play of chiaroscuri that underlines the figure. The portrait comes in a 19th century wooden frame decorated with leather leafy and floral inserts; it shows small color drops and missing parts.

Pencil, charcoal and white lead on paper. SIgned (Amalia Bianche?) and dated at the bottom right. Very effective is the use of different pigments that creat a play of chiaroscuri underlined by the figures. The portrait come in a 19th century wooden frame that had been embellished with leather floral and leafy inserts. It shows small drops of color and missing parts.

Plato and Aristotle

Mixed media on canvas. Signature, title, date and dedication on the reverse. Paolo Baratella, a recently deceased artist from Ferrara, developed his art by composing vast pictorial cycles inspired by contemporary subjects; we therefore have series of works by him gathered under significant titles. From the mid-1980s and into the 2000s, his scenographic apparatuses became more enriched with cultural, pictorial and literal iconographic references. In particular, Baratella pays greater attention to the iconography of art, philosophy and history. In this work the artist presents the portraits of the two great Greek philosophers (taken from their traditional classical depictions) and shades them in a frame of pink-blue colours. The two individual canvases are placed side by side inside a worked wooden frame, on whose two horizontal crosspieces the words "Timaeus" a work written by Plato, and "Ethics", a recurring theme of Aristotelian philosophy, are engraved.

Oil on canvas. Intense and high quality, the painting depicts a monarch of the royal house of Scotland. Around the portrait, in a painted oval frame, there are some writings: the name Rober(t) appears at the top left, the title Rex at the bottom left and the abbreviation Scot, which stands for Scotorum, on the right; the writing at the top right is not identifiable, but it seems to be an acronym. The man portrayed wears a hat and a coat adorned with ermine fur, which is considered the noblest fur, reserved for royalty. He wears a golden pendant around his neck, which depicts two leaves with the fruit of the thistle, which, in heraldry, symbolizes Scotland. The writing and the pendant therefore refer to a Robert of Scotland, probably from the dynasty that reigned in the fourteenth century. The portrait was however executed in the romantic nineteenth-century period, probably using some ancient engravings for inspiration. Restored and relined, it is presented in a frame in style.

Crayons on cardboard. Elegant portrait of a young lady, with a floral garland like a necklace. Presented in a contemporary golden frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Northern Italian school of the seventeenth century. In the portrait of this no longer young woman, dressed in an austere black dress that blends into the background, the white lace of the neck and sleeves and the detachable stomacher, or rather the richly embroidered bib to simulate a jewel, invented at the end of the '600 to cover the deep necklines of women's dresses, following the Catholic moralizing influence of the French court; the woman then exhibits a fine gold bracelet on her wrist. Restored and relined in the 19th century, the painting is presented in a late 19th-early 20th century frame.