2024-01-28 01:05:00
Time.news – Six centuries of Italian and international art from the Venetian fifteenth century to our millennium, from the culture of Mantegna and Bellini to Damien Hirst and with an unpublished work by Guido Reni, 378 lots that will start from an overall auction starting price of 7.7 million euros: between Tuesday 30th and Wednesday 31st January “La Gioia a colori” will take place, the most important auction in Italy since the sale of the Tanzi collection in 2019. The auction is held as part of the disposal of the historical-artistic heritage of Veneto Banca SpA in compulsory administrative liquidation arranged by the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
After the world record achieved by Canova’s sculpture ‘Cupid and Psyche’ (over 1.2 million euros) in the first sale managed for Veneto Banca, it is once again the Bonino auction house that launches ‘Meraviglie Atto II. Joy in Color.
The vast majority of the lots come from Veneto Banca, starting from the amazing unpublished painting by Guido Reni (1575 – 1642), “Saint Francis in meditation“, oil on canvas 183×136 cm, dated to the 1630s, according to Daniele Benati, the greatest specialist on the painter, superior to similar works in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, the collection of the Colonna Princes, the Girolamini Picture Gallery and the Louvre. Paradoxically, it came to Veneto Banca by chance, following a financial operation, and it is one of the pearls of the auction (lot 302, starting price of 200,000).
Other contributions are also exceptional, of works that have often never appeared on the market, even with foreign origins: among these, the “View of Verona” by Gaspard van Wittel (1653-1736), with in-depth description by Laura Laureati, the most notable work by Vanvitelli of this subject – very rare also because it is on copper, exceptionally preserved (37.6×41.5 cm) and a document of the historical topography of Verona – already sold at Sotheby’s London in 2005 for 756,000 (lot 309, starting price 700,000), “The sick child” by Luigi Nono (1850-1918), which represents the pinnacle of 19th century Venetian painting, a world record for the artist in Sweden in 2011 (around 350,000), which could now be repeated with an auction starting price of 680,000 (lot 339); “I Musicanti (Serenata)” by Raffaello Sorbi (1844-1931), also a world record for the artist with 334 million lire realized at Sotheby’s London in 1988 (lot 344, starting price 120,000).
The selection of ancient paintings is also amazing, among which the paintings of the Venetian and Lombard Renaissance emerge above all: a “Madonna with Child”, a panel identified by Mauro Lucco as the last known work of Antonio Vivarini (1418–1484), head of a of the main Venetian workshops of the 15th century (lot 280, starting price €160,000); “David with the head of Goliath” returned by Anchise Tempestini to Rocco Marconi (1480-1529), a large-format panel (78.5×64.8 cm), the painter’s masterpiece, which testifies to the expansion of Giorgione’s lesson to the beginning of the sixteenth century (lot 288, starting price €260,000); a third panel, a “Nativity” (also very rare due to the fact that it bears the title in sight: «NATVS ES / REDEMPTOR / MONDI») attributed by Mina Gregori to the Veronese Domenico Morone (1442-1518), under which the investigation under infrared rays it revealed a rich drawing of Mantegna and Bellini style both freehand and with ruler and compass (lot 283, starting price €140,000). Still worth mentioning is the “Head of the Baptist” by Francesco de’ Maineri (1460-1509), created between 1502 and 1508 perhaps for Ercole I d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, connected to Leonardo da Vinci’s experiments on anatomy.
The second fundamental nucleus, in ancient times, is that of the first Roman Caravaggism (1610-1620). There are two works by Carlo Saraceni (1579-1620), judged by critics to be prototypes of two of his most famous and exemplary inventions for seventeenth-century European painting: “Judith and Holofernes” and “The Madonna of Sleep” (lot 317, €120,000, and lot 299, €260,000). A “San Carlo Borromeo”, created around the date of his canonization (1610) by a hand close to Orazio Borgianni, coming from collection of the Colonna Princes before the trust which in 1818 crystallized the current famous Roman picture gallery (lot 369, €100,000). The accusations made on 2 November 1606 by the painter Giovanni Baglione against Saraceni and Borgianni come to mind, of having attacked him in the interests of Caravaggio.
And then the international 19th and 20th centuries, from Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) to Maurice Utrillo (lot 318, €16,000), from Lucio Fontana (lot 327, €140,000) to Damien Hirst (1965). A study of his dog appears by Toulouse-Lautrec (lot 332, starting price €6000), which due to its iconic power has been imagined in the design of dozens of products (from cell phone covers to beach bags!); by Hirst, an amazing “Spot Painting” (160×175.5 cm, rare format on the Italian market), from Gagosian, New York (lot 303, €800,000).
Over 50 specialists, from universities, museums and archives from all over the world, who supported the auction house in cataloguing. Among others Maria Giulia Aurigemma, Nicola Spinosa, Keith Sciberras, Luisa Martorelli, Rebecca Müller, Andrea Tomezzoli, Francesco Leone, Paola Betti, Laura Laureati, Pascal Bertrand, Anna Orlando, Enrico Maria Dal Pozzolo, Anchise Tempestini, Luigi Cavallo, Toni Toniato , Hélène Bruneau, Marco Horak, Giuseppe Pavanello, Cinzia Virno, Paolo Tomea, Daniele Benati, Babette Bohn, Bastian Eclergy, David Ekserdjian, Fausto Gozzi, Angelo Mazza, Emilio Negro, Massimo Pulini, Erich Schleier, David M. Stone, Opera Archive Giuseppe Uncini, Alessandro Delpriori, Piero Carofano, Gianni Papi, Carlo Falciani, Massimo Francucci, Angela Negro, Giuseppe Scavizzi, Stefano Causa, Paolo Bertelli, Gian Carlo Malacarne, Mattia Vinco, Andrea Donati, Patrizia Piergiovanni, Yuri Primarosa, Frederick Ilchman, Stefania Mason Rinaldi, Karin Wolfe, Francesco Petrucci, Elena Frosio, the Schifano Archive, Teresa Sacchi Lodispoto, Sabrina Spinazzé and Davide Trevisan.
All the most relevant works were systematically subjected to a set of scientific investigations carried out by the most famous Italian analysts – Davide Bussolari and Gianluca Poldi – with results available to the public: a choice made by Bonino against the tide of the auction market, where the elements relating to the state of conservation are shared only upon specific request of potential buyers. These are ultraviolet shots (which highlight retouching and restorations), infrared shots (useful for reading the drawing that may be underneath the painting), of the color via spectrometry (in order to verify the originality of the materials).
Other authors, from the 19th and 20th centuries. The landscape, the human figure, abstraction: all the main themes of Western art are represented in this auction. From Palma il Giovane to Michele di Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, Marinari and Trevisani, Ludovico Carracci and Simone Cantarini; from Favretto to Ettore Tito, from Miró to Dalí, from Montézin to Casorati, from Cabianca to Bianchi Barriviera to Dudreville; from Mancini to Annigoni, Santomaso, Schifano, Pannaggi, Morishita; from the entire Ciardi family, to William Henry Haines and Rubens Santoro; from Monachesi, Murer, Fiume, Kalchschimdt, Fazzini, Primo Conti; from the very rare Ugolini, to Milesi and Bordignon; from Toni Benetton, to Federigo Andreotti, Shōzō Shimamoto, Edgardo Mannucci and Mattia Moreni; from Anton Zoran Music to Baj and Julio Le Parc; from Maurizio D’Agostini to Uncini, Tadini, Morlotti; from Benetta to Celiberti, Pomodoro, Scanavino, Bartolini, Servolini, Tulli, Corneille, Tilson, Borghese, Radice, Trubbiani, Ghiglia, Gianquinto, Turcato, Tomea, Lazzaro, passing through emerging and historical figures of the Venetian and Marche figurative culture between the 19th century and 20th century, from Serena to Benetta to Piotto to Bresolin, to Paolo da San Lorenzo, to Guelfo. And also a precious series of sheets engraved with artistic masterpieces, from the Miliani paper mills in Fabriano.
A final gem is a canvas from the Edouard Safarik Collection, which attributed it to a very rare artist, Marietta, Tintoretto’s daughter – today at the center of academic research on female painting (Lot 293, starting price €50,000).
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