Painting by G. Micheroux The Bread's Oven Oil on Canvas XIX Century - Landscape with Figures and Bread Oven

In the Sheepfold, 1857

Oil on wooden board. Signed and dated in the center of the left margin. On the back there is a label from an art exhibition held in Sondrio in 1966 and one from the Martina art gallery in Turin. Eugène Verboeckhoven, a Belgian artist, distinguished himself for his paintings of animals, inserted into landscapes or placed in the interiors of stables. He belonged to that school of artists who, starting from the observation of nature, created compositions studied in detail, idealized reproductions of reality. Thanks to his dexterity in depicting animals, many artists called on him to enrich their works with some of his animals and figures. Between 1841 and 1842 he visited Italy, Switzerland and Scotland. The work presented here, an interior of a sheepfold with sheep and chickens scratching around, is presented in a period frame.

Mixed technique (pencil, pen, brown ink and white chalk) on paper. Italian school of the early 19th century. The scene represents the meeting between a high priest and a leader: if he is followed by his entire army, with grim and armed soldiers of different ranks, the priest is followed by all the people who praise the winner, while two young women on their knees they offer wreaths of flowers. Behind the scene, the mighty walls with the entrance door to a city, towards which the priest points, almost as if handing it over to the leader. The priest's clothing, in particular the presence of the so-called "Decision" breastplate that he wears, refers to an Israelite priest, and therefore the city could be Jerusalem; instead the clothing of the victorious leader, with the helmet surmounted by two horses, refers to Alexander the Great, who actually conquered the city in 332 BC. The drawing is presented in a carved wooden frame from the late 19th century.

Ludovico il Moro's farewell to his wife..

Mixed media (pencil, pen, brown ink and white chalk) on paper. Italian school of the early 19th century. Ludovico Maria Sforza cries at the tomb of his young wife Beatrice d'Este (1475 -1497); around him the friars of Santa Maria delle Grazie and on his left Bramante and Leonardo. On the short side of the marble canopy of the tomb there is the Sforza coat of arms, with two snakes and two eagles. Il Moro was profoundly shaken by the early death in childbirth of his very young wife Beatrice, his companion in his private but also political life, as well as his husband's, a patron of the artistic geniuses of their court, such as Leonardo da Vinci. and Bramante, authors of many pictorial and architectural works of the Visconti-Sforza court. Various versions of this episode are known, especially from the nineteenth century, from that of 1815 by Giovanni Battista Cigola at the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, to that of Alessandro Reati of around 1850. The painting is presented in a carved wooden frame from the late 19th century.

The Nine Muses

Tapestry. The word Euterp appears at the bottom right. The enormous grass juice depicts the nine Muses, female Greek divinities, all sisters, as daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, and having the god Apollo as their guide. They represented the supreme ideal of Art, understood as the truth of the "Everything" or the "eternal magnificence of the divine". Initially considered in a generic way as divinities of song and joyous dances, responsible for putting into music and verse stories such as the origin of the world, the birth of gods and men, the exploits of Zeus, and often depicted accompanied by various musical instruments, starting from the Hellenistic era, all singing and musical expressions were associated with them, including sad and funeral ones, and other arts such as theatre, and each of them was associated with a specific genre of art, so that they could be invoked individually to exercise their inspiration and protection. The word "Euterp"refers to the name of one of them, Euterpe, muse of lyric poetry and music, traditionally depicted with a flute; but the name Euterpe etymologically means "She who cheers" who brings joy, and one can therefore think that the choice of this name to title the tapestry refers to the most ancient function of the Muses, those of bringers of joy through art. In this presentation, the muses appear dancing, dressed in veils and flowering branches; in their hands or placed next to them, instruments or other objects symbolizing the art that they inspire appear (both tragic and comic theatrical masks, the pictorial palette, various musical instruments...). The large painting has signs of wear and humidity stains.

Oil painting on canvas. On the back there is a vintage cartouche with the writing in French "Academic landscape; The bath of the nymphs disturbed by satyrs" and attribution to Hippolyte Lebrun (French painter working in Italy during the first half of the 19th century). The large scene is framed, like a backdrop, from inside a rocky cave in the middle of a green and shady valley. A river flows in it to form pools of water, in which a group of nymphs bathes, disturbed by some satyrs, who chase them and threaten them. The scene actually has a very playful character, like a mischievous entertainment between the different characters. The figures, small compared to the landscape, are an added component, which enhances its character of serenity and pleasure; the reference to classical culture is in keeping with the period of neoclassicism. The painting shows traces of restoration. It is offered in a stylish frame.

Oil painting on canvas. The great scene with a realist subject is set in a thick forest where, near a spring, a small family has stopped for a rest break: leaving the cart with their belongings (without a horse, therefore pulled by hand!), a man , a woman and a large group of children, are resting, eating, cooling off at the source or playing. From the top left a ray of sunlight filters through the trees, which illuminates the group of figures located at the bottom centre, protagonists of the scene. The painting is presented in a gilded frame from the late 19th - early 20th century.

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.

Stable interior

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower left. The work was previously acquired at the Sotheby's auction in Milan on 10/12/2007. It was exhibited in 1991 in the exhibition "Giovanni Sottocornola. Images from a collection" held in Milan at the Silbernagl Gallery. After an initial pictorial phase dedicated to portraits and still lifes, in the 1880s Giovanni Sottocornola approached social themes, which were becoming the favorite subjects of young Lombard painters attentive to the poorest aspects of society, linked to the adoption of original artistic techniques. Sottocornola embraced the practice of pointillist painting, of which he wrote in 1895 "For now it is certain, I am convinced that there is no other painting more capable of conveying certain sensations than this one". However, this type of painting remained entirely focused on light, on its uncertain tonal vibrations, as happens in the Interior of a stable, created towards the end of the 1980s, where the plays of light and shadow play and create the effects visual in the brushstrokes of color played on a few chromatic ranges, those of browns, expressed in a wide variety of shades. The work is presented in a period frame.

Oil on canvas, applied on panel. Central Italian school of the 18th century. It depicts the evangelical episode in which Jesus welcomes the children to himself, urging his disciples not to push them away: "Let the children come to me, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven". The scene is full of figures that overlap and intertwine: in the foreground Jesus seated on the right, opens his arms in a sign of welcoming the children who approach him, urged by their mothers; in the background the disciples, with Peter recognizable in the center who tries to push a boy away, but their gaze is turned to Christ, who looks at them and urges them to welcome them. In the background of the scene some architecture appears, in particular the pyramid stands out which symbolically represents the tension, the ascent towards the top. The painting has an evident lack of canvas in the center, patched with the application of a wooden panel to the back. It has other small traces of widespread restoration. It is presented in a 19th century frame.

Oil on canvas. The painting looks at the similar work by Paolo Veronese (1528-1588), datable around 1560-70 and now preserved in the Prado Museum, of which our painting takes the composition of the figures, changing the entire background and the clothing of the characters. Veronese's work was so successful that it was replicated by his own workshop, with numerous variations: our work probably derives from one of these copies, replicated at a later time. The episode depicted is narrated in the biblical book of Exodus and tells of the finding of the little Moses, left by his mother in a basket along the banks of the Nile River, to save him from the massacre of the children of Israel perpetrated by the Pharaoh; the Pharaoh's daughter, who went to the river with her entourage, finds him and saves him, adopting him. The figures in the scene are depicted in eighteenth-century clothing, in particular the princess' dress stands out for its richness and sumptuousness; the only exotic element is the presence of a colored servant in the retinue, while the background also refers to a landscape of northern Europe, with thick woodland vegetation. The painting, restored and relined, is presented in an 11th century frame.

Oil on canvas. The large scene, set in a hilly countryside, with a village and ruins in the background on the left, is completely occupied by the compact group of numerous living figures: the shepherd's family is seated in the center, watching his companion who is holding the swaddled baby in her arms; all around, the animals, from the faithful sheepdog to the animals of the flock, sheep, goats and cows, also resting. The great naturalism of the animal figures stands out, which harks back in pictorial style to the works of the school of Philipp Peter Roos, known as Rosa da Tivoli (1657-1706), the German painter considered one of the best animal painters active in Italy in the 17th century, characterized by the peculiar ability to evoke the fleece and the looks of the animals. The work, restored and relined, is presented in a gilded frame in style.