MILAN.- Works of Art from the Collection of Marquis Nicola Santangelo Old Master Paintings, 19th Century Paintings Furniture and works of art And a Library of Travel books on sale at Sotheby’s Milan on 14th e 15th June 2011.

A section devoted to Old Master Paintings
The Milanese June catalogue includes at the first lots a group of Haute Époque paintings among which two panels representing Madonna con Bambino. The former, is by Liberale da Verona and it is enriched by two singing angels on the background, the latter, is by Neroccio di Bartolomeo dei Landi, sculptor and painter in Siena from the second half of the 15th Century and companion of the older Francesco di Giorgio Martini of whom he was also the brother-in-law. The two panels have the same estimate in the catalogue: between 40.000 and 60.000 euro.

“Pittora singolare tra le donne”, Lavinia Fontana is a refined artist from Bologna, working during the second half of the 16th Century and author of the great male portrait signed and dated 1581, published in the June catalogue. This painting is made monumental thanks to the elegant marble floor in perspective and the suggested lighted window, in the background. She signed as LAVINIA FONTANA DE ZAPPIS, using both, her surname and her husband’s, Giovan Paolo Zappi, painter and her assiduous collaborator. This painting is estimated at 80.000-120.000 euro.

Same estimate for Giove e Antiope - declared to be of National interest by Ministero delle Belle Arti and so not exportable - one of the finest examples of the mythological-erotic kind in which Cavalier d’Arpino excelled.

Also notified by Ministero delle Belle Arti, Betsabea al Bagno by Artemisia Gentileschi is a beautiful and well-known painting, created by the artist in her later years of activity. Alberto Chiesa, Head of the Old Master Paintings department, estimated this canvas at 200.000-300.000 euro.

We also mention a magnificent unknown canvas – whose second version is conserved at Musée de Beaux Arts de Nantes – by the Genoese painter Giuseppe Assereto which portraits the rare subject of Focione refuses thee gifts of Alexander the Great (est. 70.000-10.000 euro), a pictorial theme exalting the incorruptibility of Focione (402-318 b.C), the brave Athenian general and one of Plato’s closest followers.

The great Neapolitan School is represented by a luminous pair of paintings, perfectly preserved, by Francesco De Mura; Martirio di Santa Barbara e Strage degli Innocenti are two oil on canvas executed between 1760 and 1761 and now estimated at 80.000-120.000 euro.

By Albricci, one of the most skilled caricaturists of the 18th Century, we mention Scena di mercato e arringa del ciarlatano, a work estimated at 25.000-35.000e euro.

19th Century Paintings Girolamo
Induno was a fervent patriot and he took part in the insurrections of 1848; in 1859 he was promoted to the rank of officer and since 1860 he devoted his career to paintings with patriotic subjects, such as this one at auction in Milan: Il ritorno dal campo, dated 1869 and estimated at 100.000-150.000 euro, is an oil on canvas which, as the artist himself says: tells the story of those people who – too young or too old to go to war –remained at home […], a recurrent subject of the artist’s realism, highly appreciated by collectors; Sotheby’s Milan, in fact, sold in 2004 a smaller version of this painting for 22.800 euro.

Previously in two prestigious Milanese Collections, such as Collezione Curletti and Collezione Consolandi, La venditrice di frutta by Emilio Longoni is one of the artist’s first examples of Divisionism. This painting, dated 1891, was exhibited in the same year at the Esposizione Annuale della Famiglia Artistica Milanese and has an estimate of 100.000-150.000 euro.

One of the most important lot of this section devoted to 19th Century Paintings is PAX (La stalla) by Angelo Morbelli, an oil on canvas painted in 1918 – a year before the artist’s death – where Morbelli’s Divisionism is in its most mature period. This work, representing motherhood – a subject beloved by Millet and Barbizon artists and a recurrent theme in the production of Segantini – has in catalogue an estimate between 200.000 and 300.000 euro.

The Milanese sale includes more than one painting by Giovanni Boldini – currently exhibited in Como – among which we mention the beautiful view of Venice – L’isola di San Giorgio – an oil on canvas dated 1872 (est. 50.000-70.000 euro) where the artist used the simple brushwork of his first Florence period, deeply influenced by Turner’s rarefied atmospheres.

Previously in a Private Collection in Rome, La famiglia (mattino a Fregene) by Giulio Aristide Sartorio (oil on canvas, est. 60.000-80.000 euro) shown in 1937 at the Italian Art Exhibition of Berlin, it can be included in the group of works devoted to familiar subjects – called Ciclo di Fregene – mostly beloved by Sartorio.

Finally, we would like to mention an oil on canvas by Fausto Zonaro: L’imbarcazione, veduta di Istanbul –where the artist had moved in 1891, becoming court painter to Sultan Abdulhamid II- which is estimated at 40.000-60.000 euro.

The Marquis Nicola Santangelo Collection
Mario Tavella, Co-Chairman of Sotheby’s Europe, introduces the Santangelo Collection as follows: It will consist of less than a hundred lots, often carrying coat of arms and monograms of the Marquis Nicola Santangelo (1785-1851), the most influential, powerful and wealthy personality of the Regno delle Due Sicilie. Eminent collector, Home Minister between 1831 and 1847, he played a central role in supporting the Art politics of the king Ferdinando II during that golden period in which Naples enjoyed the position on one of main cultural European capitals of the time. He most famous was the archaeological collection of the Marquis, which was then donated by the family to the Museo Nazionale in Naples and which included the bestknown work of art of the city: the bronze horse head, which was worshipped by Goethe. The preface of this catalogue is written by Alvar Gonzalez Palacios.

Among the lots of this section, we mention Two painted and gilt porcelain vases depicting the portraits of Marchese Nicola Santangelo and of his wife Carolina 6 Castriota Scanderberrg, Giovine manufacture, Naples, dated circa 1835 and estimated at 8.000-12.000 euro.

Furniture and Works of Art
This part of the sale, consisting of mixed properties, includes a small session of about 30 lots of Chinese Art, mainly jades and corals. The rest includes 17th to early 19th Century furniture and a Filippo Tagliolini group with Bacchus and Eros, Naples, c. 1790 (est. 50.000-70.00 euro)

• A Neapolitan circular and tripode table with an inlaid “pietre dure” and marble top, dated circa 1835 and with an estimate of 30.000-50.000 euro.

Books
In the session devoted to books: a group of travel books such as La Nautica Mediterranea by Bartolomeo Crescenzi, Rome, 1602 (est. 12.000-18.000 euro) and Lo Specchio del Mare –where all ports, beaches, bays, islands and rocks are described – First edition, Genoa, 1664, estimated at 15.000-20.000 euro; il Portolano del Mar Egeo, manuscript on parchment dated 26th September 1598 and estimated at 50.000-70.000 euro. It’s worth to underline a lot composed of forty-five colour maps dated from the end of 17th Century to the end of 18th Century which has an estimate of 10.000-15.000 euro. At the end of the catalogue also an autographic letter by Giacomo Leopardi, dated Recanati, 22 Marzo 1819 and addressed to Count Alessandro Calciati (est. 7.000-10.000 euro).