Antique Painting with The Announcement Oil on Hardboard Italy 500

Oil painting on canvas. Roman school of the 17th century. The landscape, large and airy, pervaded by a "classical", timeless atmosphere, fits into the classicizing current of ideal views taken from the Roman countryside, introduced to Rome with great success during the 17th century following the example of Carracci, Domenico, Albani and the French Poussin, Dughet, Lorrain, and continued into the following century with artists such as Andrea Locatelli. This type of landscape paintings aimed to exalt the principles of beauty, reason, order and measure typical of the classical world, to celebrate the value of history, the trust inherited from the ancients in the virtues of man and his possibilities. In the nature of these landscapes, which is not abandoned to chaos, but is composed, orderly, not disturbed by violent or disorderly elements, human figures are placed, dressed in the old style as in this painting, in which a couple dressed in classic tunics she converses amiably sitting (or rather, half-reclining almost as if they were on a triclinium) in the middle of a shady and green countryside, near a quiet river; in the distance you can glimpse the buildings of a city and your gaze is then lost in the orderly and peaceful continuity of the rolling hills of Lazio. The painting, restored and relined, is presented in a period frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Roman school of the 17th century. The large scene, in Flemish style, probably the work of a Nordic author who settled in Rome, is occupied by a large architectural complex, made up of the remains of classical temples, damaged, unsafe and invaded by weeds, located near a lake. Among the vestiges of a now dead era there are numerous colorful and animated figurines of characters from everyday life contemporary with the production of the painting. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a strip frame.

Figures with Autumnal Still Life

Oil painting on canvas. The H.Sanders signature is present on the barrel at the bottom left. The scene, set outdoors in a street of a Flemish city, with the canal in the background on the left, sees in the foreground a vegetable seller behind her stall, which is set up with a varied composition of winter vegetables, a composed still life from cauliflowers, cabbage, carrots, corn on the cob; next to the woman, a passer-by carrying a harpoon on his shoulder is offering her some fish, evidently the fruit of his catch that he wants to sell. The setting brings to mind Amsterdam, the city where the Dutch painter Hercules (or Herkules) Sanders was born and lived, who established himself mainly as a portraitist, but of whom an interior genre scene is known, currently at the Detroit Institute of Arts, dated 1647 and entitled "Woman cleaning fish", whose female figure closely resembles the seller of the work presented here. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Roman school of the 17th century. The large scene represents the famous episode halfway between real history and legend, told for the first time by Tito Livio in his "Ab urbe condita libri" (the books of the "History of Rome from its foundation"). To populate the newly founded city, Romulus, founder and first king of the city, resorted to a stratagem: he invited the Sabines, who lived in the nearby city of Curi, to the Consualia festival, in honor of the god Neptune, and kidnapped their women. The painting depicts the moment in which the Romans kidnapped the Sabine women, forcibly taking them away from their companions, under the eyes of the king, who remained hidden behind the columns of the temple of the deity, the god Neptune, recognizable by the trident. In the center at the rear is the obelisk, which for the Romans acquired a symbolic meaning as war booty and testimony to imperial strength. The many figures intertwine with each other, chasing each other, overlapping, creating plays of bodies and chromatic effects. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in an antique frame.

Oil painting on canvas. Northern Italian school of the 17th-18th century. The large scene is full of figures in ancient oriental clothing, placed in a Nordic landscape, rich in vegetation and with mountain peaks in the distance. The left half is mainly occupied by Saint John the Baptist, standing and depicted according to traditional iconography: he is dressed in a poor tunic made of animal skins, but has a red cloak draped around him, symbol of martyrdom; with one hand he holds the cross-shaped stick, around which is rolled the scroll with the writing "Ecce Agnus Dei", symbol of his role as precursor and herald of Christ, and at his feet the lamb itself, sacrificial victim and therefore a symbol of Christ's sacrifice. With his other hand John points to someone on his right outside the frame of the scene, but who is obviously Christ: this gesture catalyzes the gazes of the entire crowd located on the right of the scene, a varied crowd representing genders, social classes and races different, indicating the universality of the Baptist's message. The work, previously restored and relined, has a widespread patina that needs to be cleaned. It is presented in an antique 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. Dutch school of the late 18th-early 19th century. On the back of the frame, an early 20th-century inscription reads "The Surgeon, based on a subject by Bega", referring to the Dutch painter Cornelis Bega (1620 - 1664) who stood out for his genre scenes, usually interiors and in a popular style. The interior of a house is shown here, where a woman is treating a man's leg wound, assisted by her little daughter and the curious old woman. The work is presented in an early 20th-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.