ENGLISH

HOW TO GET TO MODENAFIERE

By car:
Exit at the Modena Nord toll booth of the Autostrada del Sole, at the intersection with the Brennero highway. The exhibition center can also be reached from the North and South ring roads of Modena.

By train:
Travel with ITALO and benefit from special fares in 1st Class (the discount is applied to the Flex fare, Low Cost economy promotional fares are excluded).
Discounts cannot be combined with other offers or promotions.
Tickets must concern travel to/from Bologna or Modena.
BUY YOUR TICKET NOW

Urban transport lines:
The exhibition center can be reached by bus no. 9 of the urban transport line (Fiera stop, near the entrance). For further information: www.setaweb.it

By plane:
The exhibition center is only 20 minutes by car from Bologna’s Guglielmo Marconi airport, from which the shuttle service to Modena is also active. For more information www.aerbus.it
Flight information: www.bologna-airport.it
Furthermore, the exhibition center is 45 minutes from Verona Catullo airport and one hour and 15 minutes from Milan Linate airport

MODENANTIQUARIA 38th ANTIQUE SHOW

The treasure chest of Beauty reveals its secrets and treasures at ModenaFiere.
A sought-after destination and meeting point for art collectors, designers, Experts in search of masterpieces for large international collections or museums and lovers of art and refinement.

PROJECTS AND LANDSCAPES BETWEEN CLASSIC AND CONTEMPORARY
31st EDITION

Petra is renewed, in a new format dedicated to the outdoors, which combines the past and the present, the ancient and the modern, the classic and the contemporary, between city and countryside.

Petra becomes the exhibition dedicated to landscape design between classic and contemporary.

ITALIAN MASTERPIECES FROM THE 13TH TO THE 20TH CENTURY, IV EDITION

Modenantiquaria presents the second edition of Sculptura new thematic space dedicated to Sculpture which consolidates the ambition to become an annual event for all collectors and enthusiasts. In recent years, sculpture has awakened an exceptional market interest: it is therefore the project that was missing, a suitable place to learn about new trends, authors, proposals, and quotations.

“Welcome, this year Mattarte brought a series of important paintings including a painting by Cesare Fracanzano, a Neapolitan painter, which depicts Saint Peter.

In this painting we see Neapolitan naturalism in its maximum expression. The painting has been recognized as very similar to the “Lottatori” by Cesare Fracanzano, which can be found in the Prado.
The work is in an excellent state of conservation and has an important rhetoric and beauty, you can see the limbs, all the wrinkles on the faces, therefore a painting for true antique collectors”.

Mattarte awaits you until February 16th in Modenantiquaria!

Timetable:
Sunday from 10.30 am to 7 pm

“In this edition of Modenantiquaria we present a rich selection of Italian artistic ceramics from the late 19th century to the deco period.

We want to give particular emphasis to the Art Nouveau and Art Deco period with great names such as Galileo Chini, Gio Ponti and Lenci and let’s focus more on a pair of sensational cachepots from the Art Nouveau period of production by the Cantagalli Manufacture with very rich and highly impactful luster decoration”.

Raffaello Pernici awaits you at Modenantiquaria 2025 until February 16th!

Timetable:
Sunday from 10.30 am to 7 pm

“Our selection this year has created monothematic spaces including the one dedicated to the battle with three great masterpieces by Francesco Monti, Pinacci and Delleani, a painting of great charm.

We then brought a selection as always of objects from Wunderkammer, therefore religious works, branches and sculptures, trying to satisfy the needs of the market, therefore a lot of quality in different eras and in different styles. I just want to highlight the beautiful sedan chair, among other things, coming from the De Doria family as depicted in the heraldic coat of arms with these griffins and the initial colors on the back of the furniture itself.

Come and visit us, it’s a great edition.”

Ars Antiqua awaits you until February 16 at ModenaFiere!

Timetable:
Sunday from 10.30 am to 7 pm

“For this edition of Modenantiquaria 2025, we at Tornabuoni Arte Antica of Florence present our most important works which range from the gold backgrounds of the 15th century to the early 19th century.

One of the central works of our Stand is “Moses Abandoned by the Mother” by Giuseppe Mancinelli, a Neapolitan artist who, very famous at the time, today ready to be rediscovered, has tackled different pictorial genres especially in the religious field and in the painting that is here next to me, in fact, we find a religious theme although very toned down so that the large painting could be exhibited not only in an ecclesiastical religious environment but also in a more domestic environment.

A very difficult painting to find especially in this format by an artist who is certainly ready to be rediscovered from a historical-artistic and also market point of view.”

Tornabuoni Arte Antica awaits you in Modenantiquaria until February 16!

Time table:
Sunday from 10.30 am to 7 pm

At the age of nineteen, Bruzzi moved to Rome to study with Alessandro Castelli, but his connections with the Swiss painter Arnold Bocklin introduced him to Swiss art dealers.
In 1895 he returned definitively to Piacenza, where he obtained the chair of figure at the Gazzola Institute of Fine Arts, later also becoming its director.

The interesting part of his production is made up of his life studies, works that testify to the frankness of his feelings towards nature and the genuine spontaneity of his art.

Bruzzi considered nature his muse: he portrayed flocks of sheep or herds of cattle on the slopes or snow-capped plateaus of the Piacenza Apennines.

In the large canvas the light of the landscape is bright and crystalline, the protagonists of the scene take on bold tones projecting themselves against the clear sky. Delicate shades where the colors blend creating a magical and very fascinating atmosphere.

Art Studio Pedrazzini awaits you at Modenantiquaria until February 16th, at ModenaFiere.

BRUZZI Stefano
The two cousins
Oil on canvas

“We are in Rimini, in this case at the end of the 15th century, early 16th century: two works by the same painter, Giovan Francesco da Rimini, a mature work and a youthful work on a gold background, very important, published and documented in the Federico Zeri archive.

We continue with a triptych by Simone dei Crocifissi, another Bolognese painter. Then a Paolo Veneziano, a fourteenth-century Venetian painter, with a still Byzantine taste, to arrive at the son of Gentile da Fabriano.

Here we have on the right the “Madonna della pera” of Forlì, by the Maestro di Castrocaro who takes the name of the city in which he worked.

Altomani & Sons awaits you in Modenantiquaria until February 16th!

Time table:
Saturday and Sunday from 10.30 am to 7 pm

Are you looking for an art or design object to furnish your garden?

Come to ModenaFiere, until February 16th at “Petra. Projects and landscapes between classic and contemporary”: you can find sphinxes, gazebos, furniture furnishings, Cartier lamps, sculptures of your favorite animals.
You will be able to create the garden of your dreams with that touch of class that distinguishes you.

Timetable:
Sunday from 10.30 am to 7 pm

Modenantiquaria 2025 is the first major exhibition on the calendar in Italy.

We have been here since 1999, we actually moved. We were in a corner and now we are in the main square. We are very happy, there is a lot of attendance, we have been here for a few days and the exhibition promises well.

The exhibition is wonderful, the most beautiful things are ours, you have to come and see them, but the exhibition is very beautiful, it’s worth coming.

“Look at the eggs”, by the way, we call them eggs, but they are not eggs, they are man and woman, a work by Lucio Fontana, from 1967, a spatial concept, therefore the idea of space beyond matter.

The man and the woman, the woman the cut and the man the two little holes. Very important for these two works is to have the same number on the base.

They are archived, there are very few archived, it is one of the pieces that must be seen at Modenantiquaria.

Robertaebasta awaits you at Modenantiquaria 2025!

“For this edition of Modenantiquaria 2025 we have brought a wide selection of Venetian and Bolognese paintings.

Behind me you will find a beautiful painting by Lavinia Fontana, a Renaissance painter from Bologna, dated and signed.

The painting depicts a boy with a dog.

The work is published as a monograph”.

Milani Antichità awaits you in Modenantiquaria until February 16th!

Hours:
Saturday and Sunday from 10.30am to 7.00pm

“At Modenantiquaria, I thought of presenting a series of antique carpets, two Transylvanias, an Ushak and a double niche from the beginning of the seventeenth century.

Then I decided to also present this extraordinary carpet, Khotan with pomegranates.

We are on the famous Silk Road, at the beginning of the nineteenth century where this production of travelling carpets was born within the oases.

The oases were used by caravans to stop and rest, and many commercial exchanges between fabrics and porcelain took place within the oases.

This production of long, narrow carpets was born in these oases, precisely because of the mobile and horizontal looms, with symbols that came partly from Persia and partly from China.

They are therefore a mixture of cultures, an extraordinary trade union.

This is a pomegranate Khotan on a blue background of exceptional quality.

Mirco Cattai awaits you in Modenantiquaria until February 16th!

Greco-Roman mythology contemplates divine and semi-divine figures, monsters and demons linked to existence and everyday life, to mystery and the dark.
The Sileni are personifications of the wild aspect of human beings.

Did you know that the Sileni have equine appearance and were the geniuses of running water and springs?
The most important among them was Silenus, son of Pan, the Greek God of winemaking and drunkenness, even before Dionysus.

It was he who raised Dionysus as a child that Hermes handed over to him.

Silenus, therefore, was the putative father of Dionysus, God of wine and joy in all its forms.

Brun Fine Art presents the “Drunk Sileno” at Sculptura 2025!
A masterpiece truly not to be missed!

We are waiting for you from 8 to 16 February at ModenaFiere!

JEAN FRANCOIS LEGENDRE-HERAL
Drunken Silenus
Terracotta

“On the occasion of this edition of Modenantiquaria, the Carlo Orsi Gallery has decided to bring a selection of works mainly linked to the Emilian territory.

In particular, we have an important painting by Anselmi, “La Madonna con il Bambino, Santa Caterina e Santa Chiara”, which has a strong link with the territory and presents a mix of styles that also derive from Parmigianino and Correggio.

In addition to this I can mention an equally important painting especially for its provenance which is that of Garofalo, “La Madonna con il Bambino”, which comes from the Württemberg royal collection.

Among the other works that can be mentioned there is also this beautiful sculpture by Giovanni Bonazza, which is an example of Venetian art between 600 and 700.
The work is characterized by the classicism and refinement typical of these Bonazza marble sculptures which focuses in this case on the female figure, probably identified with Venus due to the presence of flowers which are the symbol of the goddess”.

The Carlo Orsi Gallery awaits you in Modenantiquaria until February 16!

This year Galleria Fondantico boasts of bringing a beautiful painting by Guercino, a painter from Cento, also much loved in the international area. Exhibited in international exhibitions and the pride of collectors all over the world.

The work is an oval, depicting Saint Matthew and the Angel, commissioned for a cardinal and written in the Book of Accounts with a date around 1653.

It is a work coming from a very important private collection, which has never been on the market; it was in a house for many years, so it is an opportunity for all of you to admire it.

Fondantico by Tiziana Sassoli and the splendid unreleased Guercino await you in Modenantiquaria until February 16!

We are at the thirty-eighth edition of Modenantiquaria and for this edition we presented ourselves with Pietro Liberi’s painting “Judgement of Paris“, which is in Professor Ruggeri’s monograph from 1994 and also published by #Sgarbi in 1982.

Another masterpiece is the copper by Carlo Cignani.

Then the splendid painting by Onorio Marinari the “Victorious Venus“, a painting commissioned by Cardinal Francesco Maria de Medici. Marquis Feroni asked Onorio Marinari for the same version in an oval shape.

Obviously, Onorio Marinari could not make it identical to the one commissioned by Cardinal Francesco Maria de Medici, so he made a rectangular version.

That version is now on display at the Uffizi galleries in Florence.

Gianluca Arcuti awaits you at Modenantiquaria 2025 until February 16.

“For this edition of Modenantiquaria I decided to bring several works from Bologna. Two are really very important: the Madonna and Child by Elisabetta Sirani dating back to 1665 and the sculpture by Girolamo Coltellini, a masterpiece of the Bolognese Renaissance.

Sirani has returned to the limelight in the last twenty years, perhaps being one of the most appreciated artists on an international level.

As regards the sculpture by Girolamo Coltellini, again a Madonna and Child, a masterpiece of the Bolognese Renaissance, it is a truly very important work and I would be very happy if it ended up in a public institution”.

Maurizio Nobile Fine Art awaits you at Modenantiquaria until February 16.

Gilardi is an itinerant artist who gathered information on experimental art and its creators in the 1960s, promoting the work of Richard Long or Jan Dibbets, and the introduction of Bruce Nauman or Eva Hesse to Europe.

Gilardi is also a political activist who marched with Fiat workers in 1970, and who founded the Parco Arte Vivente in 2000, commissioning earthworks from contemporary artists such as Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Lara Almarcegui.

For this reason, for his design, for his fashion creations and for his social efforts Piero Gilardi is emblematic in the evolution of art and society of the last five decades.

Gilardi is an artist whose works and theoretical research are still relevant for mapping what art could achieve and how art could be useful in the “real world”.

Secol Art by Davide Masoero awaits you from 8 to 16 February at Sculptura IV Edition at ModenaFiere.

PIERO GILARDI
Torrent bed, 1985
Expanded polyurethane

Great Personalities of the Art World in:
A HERITAGE TO BE SAVED. The Great Opportunity with Toto Bergamo Rossi, Director of Venetian Heritage, Piero Maranghi, Director Sky Classica, Almanacco di Bellezza, Alessandra Necci, Director of the Gallerie Estensi, Carlo Orsi, President of Associazione Amici di Brera, Tommaso Pasquali, Art Historian, Director of Palazzo Bentivoglio, Bologna.

Moderated by Leonardo Piccinini

The lion, undisputed king of the animal kingdom, symbol of royalty, heroism, power, courage and majesty, has inspired artists and sculptors since ancient times: in Petra you can find unparalleled specimens that will make your garden truly worthy of a king!

Timetable:
from Monday to Wednesday from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm
from Thursday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

“I have been participating in Modenantiquaria since the first edition: this is the thirty-eighth for me and for the occasion I would like present you this delightful oil painting on wood, with a gold background, created by the artist Filippo Lauri which we see here does not deny its Flemish origins which stand out in such sophisticated details.

Apollo undermines Daphne because of Cupid who makes him fall madly in love; her father, the god of rivers, Peneus, transforms her into a laurel tree to protect his daughter. Apollo, in fact, is depicted with a laurel crown.

It is a truly delightful work that was probably made for a state room.”

We are waiting for you in Modenantiquaria until February 16 at ModenaFiere!

The myth of Cephalus, collected by Hesiod in his Theogony (984-991), tells of how Eos, goddess of Aurora, fell in love with the young hunter and kidnapped him in her chariot. Feeling nostalgic for his beloved wife Procris, Cephalus would have obtained the goddess’s consent to visit her, only to allow himself to be jealous of her allusions and to test her by appearing before her in a different guise and seducing her. In this way the bond between the two spouses would have been irreparably damaged and Cephalus, deceived by the rustling noises coming from a bush, would have ended up killing Procris who in turn was spying on him while he was hunting.

The dazzling painting by Michele Desubleo depicts the moment in which Aurora, winged and with her head surrounded by white and red roses, attracts the handsome hunter, who tries in vain to escape her embrace. A Cupid witnesses the scene with a raised torch, symbol of nascent passion, while in the background another waits on the chariot pulled by two white horses.

The Carlo Orsi Gallery awaits you in Modenantiquaria until February 16.

Michele Desubleo
Cephalus and Aurora
Oil on canvas; 150 x 120 cm

Provenance: Venice, Daniele Dolfin collection, 1655.
Bibliography: unpublished.

This sweet “Madonna con Bambino” in stucco descends from a very successful model that dates back to the beginning of the 15th century in Florence.

The archetype, or one of those that may have constituted the typological matrix
for this work, is identified in a beautiful half-length figure of the Madonna with Child from the typology of the Episcopal Seminary of Fiesole, today exhibited at the Bandini Museum.

On the paternity of this model the critics are divided between those who attribute it to Lorenzo Ghiberti or to Filippo Brunelleschi in his younger years. Today they tend to consider it as a work of art by the Florentine master Lorenzo Ghiberti, sculptor and goldsmith, famous for the doors of the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence.

The example exhibited here, although repaired in its structure and color in the modern era, is of notable quality and has the particularity of bearing two coats of arms on the base, only one of which could be identified in the arms of the illustrious Florentine family of Capponi Vettori, one of the most important families in Florence.

38 years of Modenantiquaria, for us the most important event of the year, the most prestigious, the one with the longest tradition and it is therefore an honor to host it in our neighborhood.

It is the event that the entire antiques world in Italy is waiting for; there are 100 of the most important galleries in Italy with works of great value that are in our pavilions for nine days and await collectors, art enthusiasts, from paintings to furniture, carpets and jewellery!

For us it is the highlight of the year, it is the moment in which the attention of all the media throughout Italy is focused on us and our neighborhood and we are obviously very, very proud of this.

It is a challenge that engages us to the hilt every year because obviously we feel under scrutiny every time, but we hope that as always this year too will be an event of great success and great interest.

Modenantiquaria awaits you at ModenaFiere until February 16.

R.V. Art Gallery Studio by Valeria Ricci, for Modenantiquaria 2025, presents the original painting in the Animalier genre with an equestrian theme – Sporting Art “Fox Hunting” by George Wright.

The work depicts a scene linked to one of the traditional equestrian sports
most widespread and practiced throughout Europe: Fox Hunting.

A favorite hobby of English high society, it soon involved many enthusiasts around the world, revealing itself to be a mirror on many aspects of the social history of the time.

Hunting remains the first among the ancestral themes linked to survival and gave birth to some equine breeds which evolved from agricultural work to obtain sporting subjects.

Since the times when the aristocracy dedicated itself to hunting and racing thoroughbreds, the demand in artistic world of portraits and themed works allowed the growth of an important number of artists who dedicated themselves to the animalier genre and specifically created Sporting Art. This belief spread in the most exclusive clubs: “portraying a beautiful horse completes the figure of a gentleman“.
Usually the portraits were intended for sports horses who had distinguished themselves for their merits in racing and continued their activity as breeders, in this case with the spread of some disciplines such as Fox Hunting, the subject is “a precise moment” during the hunt: we see the pack of fox hounds calm, while they remain close to the riders in red jackets, probably the Master with the top hat and the two Huntsmen wearing black velvet caps like the rest of the participants, except for the riders who had to follow an even stricter dress code. rigid.

R.V. Art Gallery Studio by Valeria Ricci awaits you in Modenantiquaria until February 16th!

GEORGE WRIGHT
Fox Hunting
Oil on canvas, early twentieth century

A great Lavinia Fontana dominates in Milani Antichità, at Modenantiquaria 2025, surrounded by superb and incomparable masterpieces.

Precious LIVE shots for you!

We are waiting for you until February 16th at ModenaFiere!

Timetable:
from Monday to Wednesday from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm
from Thursday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

Tickets:
Tickets can only be purchased at the cash desk:
• Full price €15.00
• Reduced €12.00: disabled and military personnel, MEF members (Museo Casa Enzo Ferrari)
• Arte Fiera 2025 ticket holders
• Free entry: Non-self-sufficient disabled people with companion, BolognaFiere spa card with companion, Fima card with companion, AAI card with companion, Friends of the Estensi Galleries card, Rotary Club Modena card, AEFI card, ModenaFiere card with companion, Children from 0 to 14 years free entry

Giovanni Boldini, the painter of the Belle Époque who was able to conquer high society throughout Europe thanks to his extraordinary skills as a portraitist, was especially sought after by ladies.

Boldini brought luxuries and voluptuousness, beauties and worries of a time suspended between ancient and modern into art.

Ethereal girls, fascinating fémme fatales, ladies in evening dresses look out from his paintings among silks and organzas, velvets and taffetas: it is no coincidence that in 1931 Vogue defined him as “the painter of elegance”.

But Boldini also had another quality, rarer and more ineffable: the ability to transfer the psychology and changing emotions of the models, which he defined as “fragile icons”, onto the canvas.

Enrico Gallerie d’Arte awaits you with incredible masterpieces at Modenantiquaria 2025 until February 16.

GIOVANNI BOLDINI
The Baroness de Gunzburg, c. 1900-1905
Oil on canvas

“Petra. Projects and landscapes between classic and contemporary” until Saturday 16!

Masterpieces full of charm and history for your garden or terrace, for you who love style always and everywhere!

Timetable:
from Monday to Wednesday from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm
from Thursday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

From Ettore Sottsass to Gio Ponti and Lucio Fontana: great Design at Modenantiquaria 2025 by Galleria Robertaebasta

Robertaebasta awaits you in Modenantiquaria until February 16.

Timetable:
from Monday to Wednesday from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm
from Thursday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

Tickets
Tickets can only be purchased at the cash desk:
• Full price €15.00
• Reduced €12.00: disabled and military personnel, MEF members (Museo Casa Enzo Ferrari)
• Arte Fiera 2025 ticket holders
• Free entry: Non-self-sufficient disabled people with companion, BolognaFiere spa card with companion, Fima card with companion, AAI card with companion, Friends of the Estensi Galleries card, Rotary Club Modena card, AEFI card, ModenaFiere card with companion, Children from 0 to 14 years free entry

Minguzzi is perhaps the artist who best combines the local artistic tradition with modern European expressionist and cubist trends.

Trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna under the guidance of Giorgio Morandi, Ercole Drei and Roberto Longhi, he studied the Bolognese and Florentine sculptors of the early Renaissance and the modern Medardo Rosso, Arturo Martini, Marino Marini and Giacomo Manzù who offered him a strong boost of inspiration.

His studies, combined with a stay in Paris which proves to be a fundamental stage in his education, here he will have the opportunity to see the works of the great masters of the past and the main contemporary artists, will lead him to refine his artistic skills and establish himself on the international scene for his expressive and narrative qualities, characterized by dynamism of forms and, sometimes, by the tendency towards poetic abstraction.

Minguzzi’s artistic career, recognized internationally, was studded with prizes and recognitions and his works are preserved in private collections and museums around the world.

Galleria d’Arte del Caminetto awaits you until Sunday 16 February at Sculptura 2025, ModenaFiere.

LUCIANO MINGUZZI
Woman with owl, 1951
Wood, 130 x 68 x 120 cm

Great Personalities of the Art World in:

“ART AND MARKET. Instructions for use” with Bruno Botticelli, President of the Association of Italian Antique Dealers (AAI), Alessandra Di Castro, President of the Apollo Group, Arturo Galansino, Director of the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation in Florence, Fabrizio Moretti, General Secretary of the International Antiques Biennial in Florence, Giulio Volpe, Lawyer expert in Art and Cultural Heritage Law.

Moderated by Leonardo Piccinini

Petra XXXI Edition awaits you until February 16th at ModenaFiere!

To furnish your garden or terrace with style, elegance and charm!

Timeless masterpieces of unparalleled beauty await you in Petra “Petra. Projects and landscapes between classic and contemporary“.

Petra: Art and nature blend together!

Timetable:
from Monday to Wednesday from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm
from Thursday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

No other ancient art exhibition in Italy boasts such a high number of editions.

The great strength of Modenantiquaria is to have been able to interpret the social and cultural change, both at an Italian and European level, especially in the last decade.

The most renowned Italian and foreign galleries participate in Modenantiquaria, with highly selected objects.

The setting of the exhibition, curated by Ruggero Moncada di Paternò, has become one of the strong points of the event, as has the way in which the antique dealers display objects, furniture and paintings as in a real museum.

We are waiting for you until February 16 at ModenaFiere.

Hours:
from Monday to Wednesday from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm
from Thursday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

This splendid high relief is in ivory with nimbus, rays and flames in fire-gilt bronze, within an original perspective box in ebonized wood, covered on the inside with ivory slats.

The news about her life and martyrdom are many, often conflicting. According to one of the best-known versions, Agnes decided to consecrate her life to Christ already as a young girl in a difficult historical period, that of the Christian persecution wanted by Diocletian. Conducted to the temple of Vesta, Agnes refused to serve the Roman Gods and was punished by being forced to publicly display her nakedness – a true outrage for such a devout young woman.

One story, many stories

At this point the story splits: one version reports that her hair grew at a dizzying rate to cover her body, while another tells of a young man who was blinded in an attempt to violate his purity (later regaining his sight following Agnes’ forgiveness). The most spectacular version sees her condemned to the stake, where the flames are unable to lick her, dividing her, while her hair grows to protect her body.

In any case, her martyrdom made her one of the most famous saints of the Middle Ages, protector of virgins and hair – and invoked by a multitude of women, from the court lady to the humblest peasant.

AliceFineArt awaits you from 8 to 16 February at Modenantiquaria 2025.

DOMINIKUS STAINHART
Saint Agnes on the stake
1676-1682 approximately
High relief in ivory with nimbus

Modenantiquaria, sponsored by the Italian Antiques Association and FIMA, is the reference event for those seeking the excellence of high-quality antiques; a unique crossroads where collectors, enthusiasts and art dealers meet in search of precious masterpieces.

The exhibition, now in its XXXVIII edition, is the perfect combination of art, passion and business as well as an exemplary showcase for the most illustrious galleries in the sector which also exhibit unpublished works.

Art and nature blend together!

We are waiting for you from today, Saturday 8 February, to the 16th at ModenaFiere!

Event times:
from Monday to Wednesday from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm
from Thursday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

The Robertaebasta Gallery will surprise you with truly incomparable masterpieces with timeless charm!

Today we present “Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale Natura” from 1967, a work composed of two pieces in polished brass, made by the Berrocal foundries. Both are signed Lucio Fontana on the back and numbered 6/500; “Saturn”, wheel shelving from the “Cosmo” project, Gruppe B. R. A. N. D * (Rudolf Weber & Boris Broschardt) 1985/89, tubular steel, dusted, beech plywood, natural, on wheels and Gabriella Crespi (1922-2017)”The deer”, gilded bronze sculpture enclosing a high-thickness blown glass cup. Signed on the back of the base
Certified by the Gabriella Crespi Archive.

Robertaebasta awaits you in Modenantiquaria from 8 to 16 February!!

“Modenantiquaria, the Beauty of History, the Prestige of Tradition“
awaits you from Saturday 8th (opening time 10.30am) to 16th February!

from Monday to Wednesday from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm
from Thursday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

“Alexander the Great in the Temple of Jerusalem” by Sebastiano Conca is an impressive masterpiece that combines history and mythology in a single image.

Conca’s artistic style is based on the ability to create realistic and detailed figures; the use of light and shadow gives extreme depth to his works.

This scene is dramatically powerful! The central figure of the painting is Alexander the Great, who stands in the temple of Jerusalem, after conquering the city.
Around him are biblical figures such as the prophet Zacarías and the high priest Joshua, as well as soldiers and common citizens.

The colors are vibrant and rich, with warm and cool tones that are mixed to create a feeling of great tension and emotion. The details in the characters’ clothing and adornments are impressive and each figure seems to have a real personality.

Legend has it that Alexander the Great visited the temple in Jerusalem after conquering the city. The image of Alexander in the temple, therefore, became a popular theme in Christian and Jewish art.

Antichità la Pieve awaits you in Modenantiquaria from 8 to 16 February.

SEBASTIANO CONCA
Alexander the Great in the Temple of Jerusalem
Oil painting on canvas, 125 x 175 cm

The XXXI Edition of “Petra. Projects and landscapes between classic and contemporary” awaits you from 8 to 16 February at ModenaFiere, concurrently with Modenantiquaria.

To furnish your garden or terrace with style, for you who love elegance and art in all its forms… Petra is the ideal place!

Event times:
from Monday to Wednesday from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm
from Thursday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

This dazzling tranche de vie, which takes place en plein air in the shadow of a ruined arch at the entrance to an unidentified village, constitutes a precious piece for a better mapping of the chapter of “Neapolitan” landscape painting of the second half of the 17th century. The painting must undoubtedly be returned to the mature phase of an Anglo-Neapolitan master, Pietro Fabris, documented in Naples in the second half of the century but active until the first decade of the 18th century.

If the reading of the style does not lie, it should date back to around the 1970s.
In short, Pietro Fabris at his best: as demonstrated by a series of comparisons with certain works by the master. Starting from the pair of canvases with scenes of popular life, set in a cave in Posillipo and the sale of watermelons at the port, already on the English market and which, signed and dated in 1656 and ’57, constitute the oldest trace of the master’s Neapolitan work; as well as the opening shot, the start of his true catalog raisonné.

Rendered with a very clear palette, sunk in the light of a southern noon, we are talking about a painting that demands careful scrutiny. And Fabris, the great master of gouache, knew he was meeting the taste of amateurs eager to enjoy these animated, lively and tasty scenes, which unfold between foregrounds and backgrounds: from the young girl with promising décolleté holding the spinning wheel, to the young men with caps, one of whom is barefoot, intent on challenging each other to the game of morra on a barrel (on which, rendered with a few brushstrokes, the cat is stationed).

Further to the right, two small dogs, one of which has a collar, turn quickly, directing our attention towards the center of the page where, in the background, a man and a woman riding a mule are drinking. Two boys talking, one of whom shields himself with the tambourine, expertly introduce the opposite corner of the painting, very rich in notations where, with the mother from behind breastfeeding the child, farmers and animals are accompanied (rendered with a correctness in the outline not unworthy of the best Jacob Phillip Hackert).

Galerie de Cicco awaits you from 8 to 16 February in Modenantiquaria.

PIETRO FABRIS
A scene of popular life, c.1770.
Oil on canvas

Modenantiquaria XXXVIII Edition awaits you from 8 to 16 February at ModenaFiere!

Prestigious galleries will exhibit excellent masterpieces, even unpublished ones!

Anyone who purchases a ticket for the Arte Fiera in Bologna will enter Modenantiquaria at a reduced price! And vice versa!
We are waiting for you

Modenantiquaria 2025
The Beauty of History
The Prestige of Tradition

Event times:
from Monday to Wednesday from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm
from Thursday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

Tickets
Tickets can only be purchased at the cash desk:

• Full price €15.00

• Reduced €12.00: disabled and military personnel, MEF members (Museo Casa Enzo Ferrari)

• Arte Fiera 2025 ticket holders

• Free entry: Non-self-sufficient disabled people with companion, BolognaFiere spa card with companion, Fima card with companion, AAI card with companion, Friends of the Estensi Galleries card, Rotary Club Modena card, AEFI card, ModenaFiere card with companion, Children from 0 to 14 years free entry

On 9 February at 12 pm presentation of Domenico Pellegrini’s painting by Prof. Enrico Lucchese.

The painting depicts an intimate and refined scene that unites two figures from classical mythology: Venus, goddess of beauty, and the young Cupid (or Love), her son.

The moment underlines divine vanity and the ideal of beauty, central themes in 18th century neoclassical art.

The painting is a crucial work in Pellegrini’s production, created in Rome upon his return from his Neapolitan stay before leaving for London, it makes us understand his very close relationship with his friend and mentor Antonio Canova.

Domenico Pellegrini
Love and Venus are mirrored, 1792
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower left

The work is accompanied by a study by Prof Enrico Lucchese

Exhibitions:
Lucca Ex Cavallerizza, Antonio Canova e il Neoclassicismo a Lucca, Vittorio Sgarbi (8 December 2023 – 29 September 2024).
Domenico Pellegrini (Galliera V., 1759 – Rome, 1840)

Publications:
• Exhibition catalogue: Antonio Canova e il Neoclassicismo a Lucca, edited by Vittorio Sgarbi 2024;
• Arte Veneta, Rome 1792. Domenico Pellegrini e Canova, pittori di Venere di Enrico Lucchese, 2023.

Reference bibliography:
• Pavanello G, B. Domenico Pellegrini 1759 -1840. Un pittore veneto nelle capitali d’Europa, Verona 2013. Page 17.

Considered one of the most representative artists of the mature phase of the Baroque, Guercino’s technical ability and originality of touch had a notable influence on the evolution of decorations in the 17th century.

Guercino’s production is completely free from the heaviness and opacity that hindered some contemporary artists and is characterized by strong contrasts of light and airy shading which, although not becoming a means of obtaining constructive values as in Caravaggio, create a characteristic freshness and transparency.

Among his most significant works are S. Guglielmo d’Aquitania (1620, Pinacoteca di Bologna) and Cristo che appare alla Maddalena (1630, Pinacoteca di Cento).

Ossimoro awaits you at Modenantiquaria from 8 to 16 February to enchant you with the charm of works of timeless beauty.

GIOVANNI FRANCESCO BARBIERI known as GUERCINO
Moses, ca. 1619
Oil on canvas

“Petra. Progetti e paesaggi tra classico e contemporaneo” sta arrivando, dall’8 al 16 febbraio a ModenaFiere in contemporanea a Modenantiquaria 2025.

Petra offre soluzioni di qualsiasi tipo, gusto e dimensione a chi vuole arredare, progettare, o ristrutturare un giardino, un casale o una seconda casa: qui si trovano soluzioni personalizzate di exterior design, capaci di trasformare gli spazi in ambienti unici e originali anche attraverso la commistione tra classico e contemporaneo, che è la vera novità ed il trend che si sta affermando.

Ti aspettiamo a Petra, non mancare!

The leading position held by Dandini among the painters working in Florence in the mid-seventeenth century is demonstrated, as well as in ancient sources, by the reports of the now famous Galli Tassi trial of 1656, in which a sort of opinion poll was carried out to establish who the important figures were in the various artistic sectors.

The primacy in the field of painting belonged unconditionally to Cesare Dandini.

Datable to the mid-thirties, that is, at the moment of the passage within Dandini’s artistic career from the “bronze” to the “lunar” phase, our painting depicts a very elegant “Allegory of Justice”.

The work, full of charm and erudite interpretative formulas, presents an attractive female figure, allegorical personification of Justice, depicted with its iconographic symbols: a book, a silver stand containing scales and a heart, attributes of wisdom, impartiality, truth and righteousness.

Among the Master’s works, a separate discussion must be made for women, as Prof. Antonio Paolucci admirably describes to us in 1996, in his capacity as Minister for Cultural and Environmental Heritage, in the preface to Sandro Bellesi’s monograph on Cesare. Dandini: The women of the seventeenth century, as we see them in the paintings of Pietro da Cortona and Luca Giordano, are smiling and lovable creatures.
Not so the women of Cesare Dandini. They observe you with languid and specious looks, parted lips of cinnabar red with touches of pink. Flashes of vitreous purity like porcelain have their flesh exposed.

They are the women who will never give themselves to you, those of Cesare Dandini.

Theirs is a sensuality entirely of the head, cold heart and thoughts as sharp as swords, yet tortuous like labyrinths. Yet they are women impossible to forget, women who capture you in a golden net of inextricable suggestions.

We will have to wait for Gustave Moreau’s enchantresses or Dante Gabriel Rossetti‘s “reginae cordium” to find equally intriguing female images.

Mattarte awaits you from 8 to 16 February at Modenantiquaria 2025.

CESARE DANDINI
Allegory of Justice
Oil painting on canvas

Five joyful girls gathered in an interior around a table.
The young women, evidently milliners, are busy decorating ladies’ hats with feathers, bows and flowers.

Their attitude is one of cheerful carefreeness as they work in the atelier discussing and laughing.
The artist with great skill painted them in various attitudes: some sitting, some standing, some from behind. On the right of the composition, ready-made hats can be seen on high perches. The little light coming from the large window on the right contrasts with the warm light of a lamp in the main scene.

The girls with their hair gathered at the nape of their necks are dressed in late 19th century fashion with long dark cloth skirts and belts to mark the waist and elegant shirts with puffed sleeves closed around the neck.

Fabio CIPOLLA (Rome 1852 – 1935) trained in Rome, soon dedicating himself to genre painting. Everyday scenes animated by female figures became the painter’s favorite themes throughout the 1870s and 1880s, making him famous on the contemporary art scene. Characterized by a sparkling and lively chromatic imagination and by the use of warm and delicate tones, the female figures portrayed in Cipolla’s works move with grace and elegance within expertly studied interior compositions.

In these years, the painter also dedicated himself at the same time to landscape and since 1875 he has been documented in the colony of artists who painted in the countryside of Olevano Romano. He participated in the exhibitions in Milan in 1879 and in 1880 in Turin, presenting some paintings of orientalist taste, including the work Costume arabic. In Rome, he exhibited the work The Widow of Naim at the 1883 exhibition, also taking part in the subsequent editions of 1884 and 1886.

In 1902 he participated in the In arte Libertas exhibition. In 1904 he joined the XXV group of the Roman Campagna, experimenting with different techniques, including oil painting, tempera and watercolour. In 1911 he exhibited at the International Exhibition of Rome and appeared among the artists present in recent years at the ‘Amateurs and Connoisseurs of Fine Arts’ exhibitions.
He died in Rome in 1935.

The Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in Rome preserves two works by the artist, Venetian Memories and Village Interior, while the paintings Winter and Autumn in the City are preserved in the Gallery of Modern Art in Rome.

The Gallery of Modern Art in Milan has one of his paintings Donna Fellah (inv.429) exhibited at the Brera exhibition in 1879.

On the original frame there is a plate with the words:
Fabio Cipolla, The milliners
Oil on canvas 112×163 cm
Dated bottom left: 1891, with traces of signature
ITALIAN SECCION n.26.

A sketch of our painting, oil on panel 17×24 cm, signed F. Cipolla bottom right
recently appeared on the Roman antiques market.
Fabio Cipolla
Rome, 1852 1935

Dante in the Comedy said that Ezzelino had very black hair with an anomalously low hairline on the forehead: when he was alive, the tyrant Ezzelino was frightening, described for centuries as the emissary of the Devil, the great enemy of faith and morality.

In reality, the most recent historical research has better studied the political and cultural figure of Romano d’Ezzelino, Venetian tyrant, convinced Ghibelline, vicar of Emperor Frederick II (and his son-in-law, having married his daughter Selvaggia), friend and patron of artists and poets.

His father, Ezzelino the monk, had already founded a university in Vicenza in 1204 (twenty years before the one in Padua began).

And he was able to build the largest Venetian political project of the Middle Ages, wanting to create a unitary feudal state, connected with the imperial lands of Germany.
But after 1250, everything came to a head: with the death of his great ally, Frederick II, first a crusade was launched against Ezzelino (which ended on St. Bartholomew’s Day in 1259) and then a massacre that destroyed his entire family and the castle of San Zeno (in 1260).
Then came Rolandino from Padua, historian and jurist, who wrote a chronicle of Ezzelino’s years in Padua, (commissioned by the anti-Ghibelline ecclesiastical authorities), approved by the University and presented with a ceremony in 1262, at the cloister of the church of Saint Urban.

And from Ezzelino was born the black legend of the son of the devil who even now on certain full moon nights he can be heard stirring the chains of Lucifer in the infernal underground between Asolo and Saint Zeno.

Of this man, as cunning and cruel as everyone else in that era, the images of the harassment inflicted on the Paduans he conquered remained in the popular imagination.
And in the end, Ezzelino was condemned to oblivion, meaning no one had to preserve his memory and his deeds.

Upon him, ashes, contempt, damnation. His castle was torn down, the land plowed up and salt and ashes scattered over it.

Ars Antiqua awaits you at Modenantiquaria with truly magical masterpieces that will bewitch you!

From 8 to 16 February at ModenaFiere.

LORENZO DELLEANI
Ezzelino da Romano contempla l’eccidio di Vicenza
Oil on canvas

Signed and dated 1863 lower right

KHOTAN WITH POMEGRANATES, EASTERN TURKESTAN

Made in the Oasis of Khotan, along the historic Silk Road since the beginning of the 19th century, antique Khotan carpets represent a harmonious fusion of cultures and textile traditions between the East and Asia, a legacy of a commercial crossroads that for centuries has seen Persian, Chinese and Central Asian influences meet.

Made with fine materials such as wool and silk, Khotan carpets are not only works of art, but also living testimonies of a fascinating and cosmopolitan past.

They are characterized by a soft and delicate color palette, with earthy tones such as beige, ivory, pale reds and blues.

This example features four vases with pink “pomegranate” plants on an elegant dark blue background, the border with colorful rosettes is very beautiful.

KANSU, China, 18th century, 350×273 cm

In China, in the western provinces, carpets were made using local techniques based on East Turkestan patterns. Carpets of this type are known from Kansu.

This migration pattern is probably connected to the Silk Road, which passed through East Turkestan and Kansu. The shape of the rosette in the center of the staggered stepped polygons, divided into quarters by colors and dividing lines, represents East Turkestan.

The principle of the coffered pattern is also known, albeit in a different form, in East Turkestan carpets. Of Chinese origin, mainly due to its coarse knotting structure, asymmetrical knots and the use of cotton in the warp and weft. Some colors have a specific pigmentation, which indicates the adoption of the dyeing techniques used in felt carpets. These colors are beige, willow yellow and light blue. As material they used the finest camel and sheep wool. In the present example, goat hair was also used.

The appearance of the carpet is reminiscent of modern and abstract art.

Mirco Cattai awaits you at Modenantiquaria 2025 with all the magic of the East.

Great Personalities of the Art World await you at Modenantiquaria 2025!
We are waiting for you!

Bruno Botticelli, President of the Association of Italian Antique Dealers (AAI)
Alessandra Di Castro, President of the Apollo Group
Arturo Galansino, Director of the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation in Florence
Fabrizio Moretti, General Secretary of the International Antiques Biennial in Florence
Giulio Volpe, Lawyer expert in Art and Cultural Heritage Law

moderated by Leonardo Piccinini

Piero Maranghi, Director Sky Classica, Almanacco di Bellezza
Alessandra Necci, Director of the Gallerie Estensi
Carlo Orsi, President of Associazione Amici di Brera
Toto Bergamo Rossi, Director of Venetian Heritage
Tommaso Pasquali, Art Historian, Director of Palazzo Bentivoglio, Bologna

moderated by Leonardo Piccinini

A work of timeless charm, signed and dated on the edge of the table: “LAVINIA FONTANA DE ZAPPIS PINGEBAT MDLXXXIII”. This oil on canvas, measuring 57×68 cm, is a perfect example of the mastery of Lavinia Fontana, one of the first women in history to build a professional career as a painter.

The painting depicts a child with a delicate expression, dressed in a rich brocade dress, who gently caresses a small dog, a universal symbol of loyalty and affection. The refinement of the composition and the attention to detail, evident in the precious fabrics and the soft nuances of the fleshy tones, demonstrate the ability of the Bolognese painter to make every element of the portrait alive and vibrant.

This canvas transports us directly to the Bologna of the sixteenth century, a time in which Lavinia Fontana challenged the conventions of her time, emerging as a revolutionary figure. Her style, characterized by a balance between tradition and innovation, has left an indelible mark on the history of Italian art and on the world of Renaissance portraiture.

Prospero Fontana, Lavinia’s father, was not only an established painter, but also a humanist, a cultured, refined man who was well-connected to the city’s cultural circles.

He frequented intellectuals and painters, including Annibale and Ludovico Carracci, Lorenzo Sabbatini and Giambologna. All this played a decisive role in Lavinia’s education, a woman who was therefore privileged because she had immediate and unlimited access not only to the practice of painting, but also to the world of culture, unlike almost all of her contemporaries.

In 1577 Lavinia married Giovanni Paolo Zappi, a painter generally considered to be of mediocre artistic level, who was instrumental to Lavinia’s career, becoming her de facto agent.

The marriage contract specified that the spouses would have to live in Bologna, in Prospero Fontana’s house, until his death and that it was the husband’s duty to take care of the management of the income that his wife would have obtained as a “pittora” (painter): Prospero, in essence, wanted to be sure that his daughter would continue to practice her art even when married, something by no means automatic at the time, and this imposition on the future son-in-law should be read as a demonstration of his esteem towards his daughter.

By the end of the 1580s, Lavinia Fontana Zappi was an established painter who painted mainly portraits of the notables of Bologna, especially noblewomen, for whom having their portraits painted by the famous “pittora” became almost a fashion. Her Flemish-flavoured expertise in capturing details, a direct result of her father’s taste for collecting on the one hand and the love for encyclopedic knowledge typical of the times, was admired by all.

Lavinia Fontana was also ahead of her time in terms of management and the practical aspects of her career. She was able to cultivate high-ranking connections and contacts, she chose illustrious godfathers and godmothers for her children, demonstrating astuteness and skill in consolidating her customs and securing her commissions, and to further strengthen these bonds, she even baptized some of her daughters with the names of her clients.

MILANI ANTICHITA’ awaits you from 8 to 16 February at Modenantiquaria.

Lavinia Fontana (Bologna, 1552 – Rome, 1614)
Ritratto di bambino con cane, 1583
Signed and dated on the edge of the table “LAVINIA FONTANA DE ZAPPIS PINGEBAT MDLXXXIII”.
Oil on canvas

Petra offers solutions of any type, taste and size to those who want to furnish, design, or renovate a garden, a farmhouse or a second home.

At Petra you will find customized exterior design solutions, capable of transforming your space into a unique and original environment.

We look forward to seeing you at ModenaFiere from 8 to 16 February!

Giovanni Fattori, one of the most renowned Italian painters who made the “macchia” his stylistic signature. Fattori is one of the main exponents of the Macchiaioli, a group of artists who met at the Caffè Michelangelo to discuss and talk about artistic and political themes.

Fattori painted mainly his beloved Tuscan landscapes, his Maremma but also farmers, workers and episodes of war.

What made him famous and admired was the astonishing use he made of stains and colors, always representing realistic subjects.

Spokesman of a powerful painting, capable of interpreting, throughout the second half of the 19th century, the transformations of modern vision, Fattori moved with extreme ease from landscape, of which he was one of the most surprising interpreters, to portrait, achieving equally astonishing results, to the chronicles of contemporary history, where he was a witness of an era, to scenes of popular life, where he was able to share the moods and the most dramatic problems of humanity.

Giovanni Fattori with Silvestro Lega and more… awaits you in Enrico Gallerie d’Arte Stand Il Guercino 5

Women, the undisputed protagonists of the Belle Époque, found in Boldini an exceptional interpreter, capable of telling the story of rediscovered femininity, expressed in subtle games of seduction and ambiguity.

“Woman is undoubtedly a light, a look, an invitation to happiness, and sometimes the sound of a word; but above all she is a general harmony, not only in the gesture and harmony of the limbs, but also in the muslins, in the veils, in the large and iridescent clouds of fabrics in which she wraps herself, which are like the attributes and the foundation of her divinity”.

With these words, Charles Baudelaire in 1863 sang the essence of femininity contemporary to him, anticipating in some way the haughty and magnetic charm of Boldini’s women.

Women at their dressing tables, dancing or lying languid and sensual on soft silk cushions, women with waists squeezed into rigid whalebone corsets, women who love to spend golden existences among the sounds and entertainment of a society made in their image and likeness.

“Femmes fatales” sensual and seductive, beautiful among the beautiful, whose hips Boldini, in his house-atelier on Boulevard Berthier, did not hesitate to refine hips, slim the necks, shape the cheekbones and plump the lips, always very careful to indulge and flatter his very affectionate clients.

Giovanni Boldini and the charm of the Belle Epoque await you at the Galleria Arte Cesaro in Modenantiquaria from 8 to 16 February.

GIOVANNI BOLDINI
“Ritratto di Signora seduta“
1918 c.
Oil on panel

The Sibyls are historical characters as well as legendary figures linked to Greek and Roman mythology. They are virgins with particular prophetic virtues who were directly inspired by the gods. These women, in fact, had the gift of predicting the future and giving answers to existential questions that they used to write on leaves or books, sometimes even for a fee as in the case of kings.

In ancient times, there were many Sibyls, but the most famous were those of Delphi, Erythraeum and Cumae. These seers were also known as Pythias, in reference to the serpent of the same name that killed Apollo at Delphi when it took possession of the source of the oracle. Although belonging to the pagan world, the sibyls survived the advent of Christianity and took part in it, becoming decorative characters to be placed alongside the biblical ones in churches and sacred places.

Bernardino Nocchi’s Sibyls are simply unparalleled.

Bernardino Nocchi occupies a prominent place in the transition between Late Baroque painting and the Neoclassical season. Trained in the lively Roman culture of the late eighteenth century, Nocchi was able to harmoniously blend compositional elegance and academic rigor, earning attention and high-profile commissions.

These two preparatory sketches for the frescoes in the Sala dei Fasti Prenestini in Palazzo Stoppani Vidoni in Rome bear extraordinary witness to the artist’s creative process: from the first charcoal lines, attested by the important preparatory drawing on paper preserved in Lucca, at the Museo Nazionale di Villa Guinigi, to the final pictorial draft.

Note the monumentality of the figures in a semicircular architectural space. The enveloping clothes, the warm tones and the skillful rendering of the draperies reveal Nocchi’s mastery in creating an intense dialogue between the characters and the observer. The female figures of the Sibyls embody the classical tradition and at the same time the prophetic-Christian theme that prefigures the coming of the Messiah.

The artist effectively captures the mystical solemnity of these characters, placing them within a compositional register that combines aesthetic grace and symbolic significance. The pictorial texture reveals rapid layers, typical of sketches designed to define the general composition. Thanks to the pink, ochre and blue tones, Nocchi’s stylistic transition towards a neoclassical elegance can be glimpsed, while maintaining certain Baroque echoes in the chromatic richness.

In the artistic panorama of the late eighteenth century, Nocchi was appreciated by both secular and religious clients, achieving important creations in Rome and in his hometown Lucca. These sketches fall within the genre of celebratory decorations of noble environments and show Nocchi’s multifaceted ability, halfway between the Baroque tradition and the new Neoclassical sensibility.

Altomani & Sons awaits you at Modenantiquaria from 8 to 16 February: elegance, mystery and sensuality.

Bernardino Nocchi
(Lucca, 1741 – Rome, 1812)
The Sibyls
Preparatory sketches for the Frescoes of the Sala dei Fasti Prenestini of Palazzo Stoppani Vidoni in Rome Pair of paintings, oil on canvas

Narcissus was the son of Cephisus and the nymph Liriope. According to Ovid’s myth, when he was a child, Narcissus’ mother questioned a famous soothsayer named Tiresias to know her son’s future.

In particular, she asked him if the child would see old age. The soothsayer responded with words that at the time sounded ambiguous: “Only if he does not know himself“.

Narcissus was of an impressive beauty. Girls and boys fell in love with him but he promptly disdained them: he did not let himself be loved by anyone. One day while he was hunting deer in the woods, as he usually did, he met Echo, a wood nymph.

Echo had the peculiarity of not being able to speak and answer as she liked, but only to pronounce the last words of others. This was because of Juno who accused Echo of trying to distract her with a lot of chatter while her companion, Jupiter, the king of Olympus, was entertaining himself with some nymphs.

Echo also falls victim to the beauty of Narcissus. But in the myth of Narcissus the young man rejects her, and Echo pursues him with even more desire. And the more he runs away, the more she follows him.

However, at a certain point Echo is exhausted, and her strength begins to fail her. Echo begins to dissolve in the wind, she begins to lose weight little by little until nothing remains of her except her voice.

Later, another lover rejected by Narcissus asks the goddess of vengeance Nemesis to take revenge and make the handsome young man fall in love with himself. The goddess agrees, and so Narcissus, looking at himself in a fountain, becomes a victim of his own charm and obviously tries in vain to embrace his own reflected image.

Narcissus slowly consumes himself until he dies, killed by this unattainable love and what remains of him is the flower of the same name: the narcissus.

Vincenzo Gemito dedicates this spectacular sculpture to Narcissus: fascinating, seductive and precious, it awaits you at Sculptura 2025 in LONGARI arte MILANO from 8 to 16 February.

“Vincenzo Gemito – says the art historian Bellenger – in Naples takes on the dimensions of a myth, of a great figure of legend, not black and obsessive like that of Caravaggio, but tender, to whom the Neapolitans have become fond. A feeling that arises from admiration and indulgence towards the prodigal son, the street boy.

Gemito was a “scugnizzo”, “the Gavroche of the French”.

VINCENZO GEMITO
(Naples 1852 – 1929)
Narciso
Dark patina bronze, cm 62.5 x Ø 25
Signed on the base “Gemito”
Dedication on the base: “Eseguito per Sua Sig.ria Il Conte Uberto Ludolf, Napoli 1886”
Stamp on the base: ARTISTIC PROPERTY numbered 38.

The equestrian sculpture in Carrara marble, depicting Francesco III d’Este, conceived by Francesco Antonio Panzetta Cassarini in 1750, is an exceptional testimony to the talent of
this sculptor and represents a one-of-a-kind celebratory monument.

Made of white Carrara statuary marble, the sculpture stands out for its elegance
and the accuracy of its details, with red marble inserts on the base, which accentuate
its monumental aura.

This sketch is the only surviving example of a series of works planned to celebrate the figure of the Duke of Modena.

The monument was designed to commemorate the crucial role of Francis III in the construction of the Tambura road, a strategic infrastructure that connected Modena with the sea, inaugurated in 1738.

This project, considered one of the greatest successes of his reign, symbolized the economic dynamism and progress of the Duchy of Modena, and the sculpture was intended to celebrate its importance.

The Duke is portrayed in royal armor, on horseback, with a majestic and authoritative air. The choice to represent him on horseback expresses his commanding position and his strategic vision for the territory. The accurate details, such as the golden fleece on his chest, which highlights his chivalric status, and the trophies at the feet of the horse, a symbol of victory, add value to the historical narrative of the work.

The shield with the head of Medusa, which adorns the base, represents a warning to enemies and symbolizes the protection and power of the Duke.

Although the final monument, later commissioned to the sculptor Giovanni Antonio Cybei, was lost due to historical events following the death of Francis III, this model by Panzetta Cassarini offers an important testimony to the ambition to create a monumental and solemn work. It was intended to perpetuate the memory of such a significant figure in the history of the Duchy of Modena.

Panzetta Cassarini, known for having been one of the most esteemed professors at the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara, demonstrates in this sculpture his skill not only in working the precious Carrara marble, but also in the ability to infuse dynamism and life into the sculptural figures. The movement of the horse, with its front legs raised, and the proudly erect pose of the Duke express a unique elegance and vitality.

This sculpture, in addition to being a splendid work of art, represents a symbol of the political and cultural greatness of the period. Its preservation over the centuries is testimony to the lasting value of art in keeping alive the memory of historical events and figures.

Francesco Antonio Panzetta Cassarini
(Carrara XVIII century)
Model for the Equestrian Monument to Francesco III d’Este, Duke of Modena

On the front of the base inscription:
FRANCISCUS/ TERTIUS/ DUX MUTINAE/ Inv. et Sculp: Fran:/ Panzetta Carrarie/ an: 1750
cm 71 x 47 x22.5

Bacchus (called Dionysus by the Greeks) is the god of wine and mysteries. He is the symbol of drunkenness, sensuality and the most unbridled vitalism. He is also the god who ensures the ‘pure’, the faithful initiated into his secret cult, a blessed fate in the afterlife. God of fertile nature and agriculture, Dionysus (or Bacchus for the Romans) is said to have been the first to introduce it to men. According to myth, he was the son of Zeus and a mortal, Semel. Raised by nymphs and satyrs, Dionysus crossed the East to reach Greece, bringing the knowledge of wine as a gift everywhere.

It is also said that, while still young, he had been kidnapped by pirates, but that he had managed to free himself miraculously: the laces that tied his hands and feet had untied themselves; wine had begun to gurgle on the ship, vine shoots had spread out along the sail, ivy had wrapped itself around the mast, and, when the god had changed his appearance into that of a lion, the frightened pirates they had thrown themselves into the sea, where they were transformed into dolphins. In myth and in the depictions on vases the god is very often represented with youthful features and with flowing hair; he wears a long and colorful dress, and around him he has a festive procession of satyrs and nymphs.

The Bacchic ‘orgies’ are famous: an enormous joy – capable of bordering on wildness – characterizes the Bacchic rites. The faithful feel possessed by the god and, in a state of exaltation that deprives them of any form of self-control, they abandon themselves to convulsive dances and long runs.

The maenads are the followers of Dionysus: they wear a fawn’s skin and, shaking their thyrsus, animated by a violent fury, they hurl themselves at calves, heifers and bulls, tear them apart and feed on their raw meat. Dionysus himself took the form of the sacrificed animal, and by ingesting the flesh of the victim the faithful entered into communion with the god.

Galleria Carlo Orsi awaits you at Modenantiquaria from 8 to 16 February at Modenantiquaria.

Hercules (Heracles for the Greeks) is the hero-demigod, gifted with exceptional strength, who victoriously faces superhuman labors. He is a powerful and beneficent hero: most of his enterprises consist in liberating the world from dangerous monsters. His ‘labors’ became the symbol of the sacrifices that the exercise of virtue requires, his apotheosis (i.e. his assumption into Olympus among the gods) symbolized the rewarded virtue.

His legendary strength dates back to his early childhood when, still in the cradle, he strangled two serpents that were threatening his mortal twin Iphicles; the myth also tells that the little Hercules killed the music teacher Linus by throwing a stool or a lyre at him. Already as an adolescent he found himself at a crossroads: choosing between Vice and Virtue. In fact, two women with opposite features appeared before him, one made up, the other soberly dressed. The young man, after listening to their arguments, chooses the path of virtue, which offers less immediate but more lasting pleasures.

Driven mad by Juno, jealous of Alcmena, he killed his own children mistaking them for those of his cousin Eurystheus, who ordered him to perform the famous twelve labors that Hercules undertook after consulting the oracle of Delphi. The first was the killing of the Nemean lion, whose skin he always carried with him; then followed the killing of the Lernaean Hydra, the Cerynean deer, the capture of the Erymanthian boar, the cleaning of the Augean stables, the hunting of the terrible birds with steel feathers that infested Lake Stymphalus, the capture of the Cretan bull and the mares of Diomedes, king of Thrace, the kidnapping of the belt of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, the adventurous robbery of Geryon’s oxen, the gathering of apples in the garden of the Hesperides and the encounter with Cerberus in the underworld. The labours of Hercules have been interpreted in a mystical key as the difficult path of the soul that progressively frees itself from the bonds of passions and the body: according to Christian exegesis the classical hero is, in fact, a figure of Christ.

Galleria Carlo Orsi awaits you at Modenantiquaria with Gods and Heroes of Yesterday and Today! From 8 to 16 February at Modenantiquaria.

Hercules as a Child Fighting with Serpents
Dark patina bronze, 27.8 x17.4 x 19.5 cm
Marble base: 30.4 x 19.8 x 3.8 cm

Another great protagonist of the 2025 Edition: Antichità all’Oratorio!
A parade of Masterpieces for you in preview at Modenantiquaria!

In “Madonna with Child” Mary holds a lively little Son, encircling his leg with her right hand and supporting him with the other hand at chest height.

A scene truly full of values and pure emotion!

Jesus is naked, has short hair, looks down and shows his red cheeks like his Mother.

He grasps his mother’s thumb with his left hand in search of protection and safety and firmly places his feet on Mary’s cloak.
Our relief is part of a vast production of polychrome and gilded wooden works that flourished in Veneto between the 14th and 15th centuries.

In particular, the workshop of the Moranzon operated in Venice, a family of top-level artists who became an essential point of reference in the construction of devotional images, both large altar structures for places of worship and for private devotion, in the Serenissima and in its mainland dominions in Italy and in the Gulf of Quarnaro.

Antichità all’Oratorio awaits you at Modenantiquaria from 8 to 16 February.

MADONNA WITH CHILD
Veneto area (Verona)
15th century, fourth/fifth decade

HEAD OF A VIRGIN
France (Champagne)
14th century, late
Carved limestone
H. 33 cm

VIRGIN IN MAJESTY
(Sedes Sapientiae)
Spain
14th century, third quarter
Walnut wood
59 x 23 x 21 cm

“How beautiful is youth,
though quickly it does flee!
be happy if you want to:
for tomorrow may not come”

Be happy if you want to,
For tomorrow is not certain.

Hedonism, naturalism, the transience of human life (carpe diem), the exaltation of beauty and youth, of the pleasures of earthly life such as wine and love, understood as joy, happiness, light-heartedness are represented by characters from classical mythology inserted as protagonists in this work.

Bacchus and Ariadne appear cheerful and happy, festive, deeply in love with each other, they represent the maximum expression of cheerful, joyful youthful love, careless of the deceptive and fleeting time. The nymphs, creatures full of grace and lightness are very happy to suffer the amorous ambushes that the satyrs set for them, mythological figures half man and half goat. They, as well as Ariadne, represent love, grace associated with beauty and youth.

Bacchus, being the God of wine in Greek mythology, therefore represents, in addition to love, also the full enjoyment of earthly pleasures, such as parties, wine, joy, dances. The satyrs represent sexual and natural impulses.

All these characters reflect Lorenzo the Magnificent’s conception of love, according to which only rough, vulgar and graceless people are insensitive to the call of this feeling, understood as a virtuous value worthy only of people with a gentle soul.

Lanfranco Donatone Antiquario awaits you at Modenantiquaria from 8 to 16 February!

BERNARDINO GENTILE IL GIOVANE
Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne
Polychrome majolica plate from Castelli d’Abruzzo, 33 cm
Mid-18th century

Goldoni Art Gallery: elegant vibrations and idyllic dimensions.

“In Italy there is nothing. I have been everywhere. There is no painting that is worthwhile. I have been to Venice, in the studios. In Italy there is Ghiglia. There is Oscar Ghiglia and that’s it“! So said Amedeo Modigliani, reported by Anselmo Bucci in “Parisian Memories” of 1931.

Ghiglia’s painting is free from contamination, also due to the surly nature of the character, not very open to relationships, often in contrast even with friends like Papini and Modigliani.

Galleria d’Arte Goldoni presents a Masterpiece by Ghiglia with full-bodied and vibrant brushstrokes, in an elegant line with an ancient flavor:
“Il barattolo verde” (The Green Jar), oil on cardboard, 1928 – 30.

Another Masterpiece by Plinio Nomellini, with his increasingly personal Divisionism that emerges precisely in the 1910s, is “Fantasia” or “Summer on the Tyrrhenian Sea” from 1918.
Explosions of color set the scene in a fantastic and sublime dimension!

Galleria Goldoni awaits you at Modenantiquaria…and these are just some of the Masterpieces that it will bring to Modena, from February 8 to 16!

Giovanni Maria Mazza in Ecce Homo and Madonna by Maurizio Nobile Fine Art.

In the first heavenly masterpiece the Virgin is depicted. The character rests a hand on her chest; her ecstatic face is stretched forward, towards the right, with her eyes half-closed. The composition is animated by the cloak that, as if moved by a wind, slips from the head to the shoulders, intertwining in the arms of the figure.

The iconography is that of the Woman of the Apocalypse in the vision of St. John the Evangelist on Patmos: “clothed with the sun, […] on her head a crown of twelve stars“. She is in fact surrounded by a sunburst made by engraving, between which are placed some stars created by using a mold (in our case we see only nine, not twelve).

The second represents an Ecce Homo, that is, a half-naked Christ while he is presented by Pontius Pilate to the people of Jerusalem. The tunic falls on the shoulders of the character in an irregular way. The wrists are tied together with a rope. The face is turned to the left, with a contrite look and the mouth half-open.

The background of the Ecce Homo is also decorated with an engraved sunburst. A flat-surfaced halo seems to have been modeled behind the figure’s head.
Both terracottas were probably covered with a monochrome faux bronze patina, now almost completely lost.

A work completely similar in subject and composition to the oval with the Virgin is the relief signed and dated 1687 by Giuseppe Maria Mazza, now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna.

The Pinacoteca also houses the work’s pendant, depicting Saint Joseph with the Child.

Few doubts can arise about the social rank of this young woman, portrayed while showing off jewels of unusual richness.

The preciousness of the dress clearly reveals the character’s belonging to the ruling elite.

In fact, upon careful inspection, the still Mannerist-looking pendant pinned on the chest reveals within the elaborate design a crown of a House, intertwined with other decorations.

Emilio Negro attributed the work to the hand of Carlo Ceresa, one of the greatest portraitists of seventeenth-century in Lombardy, noting “an accurate painting with a typically Lombard tone” combined with slight Flemish influences.

The scholar establishes comparisons with various works by the artist, a student of Daniele Crespi in Milan, such as the Portrait of a Gentlewoman of the Suardi household, from the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, and the Gentlewoman showing the pearl, from the Civic art collections of the Castello Sforzesco.

Particularly interesting is also the comparison with the Marchesa clutching a sprig of orange blossoms, from a private collection in Bergamo. In this canvas, a woman of equal rank is depicted with a very similar hairstyle and dress, embellished as in our portrait with a flashy lace scabbard. Even the goldsmiths’ work appears closely linked, to include a marquise crown in the Bergamo painting.

The execution of the latter has been placed by Vertova between 1633 and 1635, and the canvas in question can therefore be traced back to the same period, in the artist’s youth.

Tornabuoni Arte awaits you at Modenantiquaria from 8 to 16 February!

CARLO CERESA
Ritratto di giovane nobildonna
Oil on canvas, 131×98 cm
San Giovanni Bianco/Bergamo, 1609 – Bergamo, 1679

Venus is one of the most ancient Greek deities (Aphrodite), the goddess of love par excellence, wife of Hephaestus, also known for her numerous adventures with other gods and mortals.

For the Romans, Venus embodies the marital bond, mother of Aeneas and progenitor of the dynasty of Julius Caesar, symbol of the divine origin of the Eternal City.

Together with the god of Love (Eros), Venus ignites the desire to fall in love, protecting every form of love, chaste and profane.

In Onorio Marinari’s “Venus Victorious” we find a reference to the Trojan War, in fact in the painting Venus is holding an apple.

It is said that the kidnap of Helen and the subsequent Trojan War originated in a story featuring Venus.

Hera (the Roman Juno), Athena (Minerva) and Aphrodite (Venus), were fighting over who was the most beautiful of them.

Paris, called upon to decide, gave the apple to the beautiful Venus, who was therefore the “winner”.

The goddess, to reward him, made Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, fall in love with him.

The “Venus Victorious” has been represented over the centuries by poets, painters and sculptors.
How can we forget the extraordinary neoclassical sculpture by Antonio Canova of Paolina Borghese depicting the Venus Victorious, realized between 1805 and 1808 and exhibited at the Galleria Borghese in Rome!

Let yourself be inebriated by the beauty of Venus!

Arcuti Fine Art awaits you at Modenantiquaria from 8 to 16 February at ModenaFiere.

Onorio Marinari
Venus Victorious
Oil on oval canvas

The Flemish Hendrik van Lint was one of the main protagonists of landscape painting during the first half of the 18th century.

A native of Antwerp, he settled in Rome in 1700 where he attended the workshop of Gaspar van Wittel, famous for his meticulous representations of the Eternal City.

Another artist whom Lint looked at with deep admiration was Claude Lorrain: his ideal views, cloaked in a soft light whose meticulous technique assumed the creation of drawings often executed in situ, were in fact essential for anyone wishing to evoke the classicist aesthetics of the Roman countryside.

It is not surprising then that his works were collected with enthusiasm both by the aristocratic travellers of the Grand Tour, and by the great patrician families such as the Altoviti, the Pamphili, the Sacchetti. Don Lorenzo Colonna, for example, counted in his collection no less than seventy landscapes by the artist.

The representative variety of van Lint was also surprising, as he rarely replicated his views, strongly characterised and recognisable, the result of repeated days out of town. The attentive spirit of observation and the aesthetic quality of the Artist met the favour of collectors, eager to possess a vivid and spontaneous memory of the landscape wonders of the peninsula.

Attilio Cecchetto Antiquario awaits you at Modenantiquaria from 8 to 16 February at ModenaFiere.

Hendrik Frans van Lint
The Island of San Giorgio, 1722
Oil on canvas

The story of David who, armed with a slingshot, kills Goliath, the fearsome giant of the Philistines at war with the people of Israel, is one of the most famous episodes of the Bible.

Symbol of faith and courage that triumph over brutal violence, the story has inspired numerous artists including the Nicolas Tournier, a French painter, follower of Caravaggio and exponent of the Baroque.

The skilful use of light effects recalls the works of the great Merisi (Caravaggio), inevitably allowing the Frenchness of Flemish origin that distinguishes each of Tournier’s works to shine through.

Goliath is three meters tall, armed with a forty-kilogram breastplate and a spear with a five-kilogram tip.

Goliath issues a challenge: a duel between him and a champion of the enemy army will decide the outcome of the war.

It is at this point that David enters the scene, called by King Saul. David offers to go and fight against Goliath, telling the king of his own valor and how, while tending his father’s flocks, he often had to kill bears and lions.

God had saved him on those occasions and would do the same against Goliath.

Saul gave him a helmet, a breastplate and a sword but David refused them.

He then chose five smooth stones from a stream; then, with his sling in his hand, he went towards Goliath.

Anticipating the giant, David hurled a stone forcefully against Goliath’s forehead, who fell to the ground. So, David ran towards him and killed him with his sword, then cut off his head.

Goliath’s severed head was carried in triumph to Jerusalem.

David went towards Goliath trusting not in himself but in God, armed not with iron but with his own faith.

The episode of David and Goliath has been depicted by countless painters and sculptors, fascinated above all by the figure of the bold boy who, armed only with a sling, faces the fearsome giant. “Young, blond and handsome”, the Bible describes him to us.

And as a bold adolescent of extraordinary grace and beauty, the Florentine sculptor Donatello depicts him in a very famous bronze statue.

Even in what is perhaps the most famous statue in the history of art, the monumental David sculpted by Michelangelo at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the figure of the boy becomes an exaltation of virile beauty and strength.

Caravaggio, on the other hand, in one of his last, shocking interpretations of the biblical episode painted in 1606, places in the foreground the severed head and the face distorted by pain of Goliath, to whom the painter lends his features (it is in fact almost certain that it is a self-portrait).

Studiolo Fine Art awaits you from 8 to 16 February at Modenantiquaria, to amaze you with masterpieces that are nothing short of astonishing!

NICOLAS TOURNIER
David with the Head of Goliath, circa 1620
Oil on canvas

SILVIO CANEVARI
David, 1930
Alabaster plaster patinated with bronze
Signed at the base “S. Canevari”

“The Odalisque“, by Sofia Grancini is one of the undisputed Masterpieces of the 2025 Edition.

The female figure is not simply a model dressed in oriental clothes, absorbed in her chores, treated by the superficial eye as a simple decorative object within the canvas.

Her humanity is rendered by the confident and intense gaze, the natural and casual pose, as if she wanted to show the observer that she has nothing to envy from a man: she is a real woman, proud of being one and of existing not for pleasure, visual or sexual of men, but for herself and no one else; she is a leading woman, totally cleared by the male gaze.

The figure’s proud attitude is accentuated by the act of smoking a cigarette, a gesture probably inappropriate for a lady of the time; she is portrayed in the very moment in which, nonchalantly, she lets the smoke slip from her full heart-shaped lips.

Grancini demonstrates great chromatic knowledge, her is a warm, clayey but extremely elegant palette; the artist manages to perfectly render the texture of the oriental carpet in the background, while the ochre velvet sofa, where the figure is softly sitting, shines almost gold.

The light coming from the right defines the woman’s delicate face, toning down the sweetness of her eyes, half-closed in an almond shape. The clothes are reproduced in every detail, from the soft striped turban to the shirt in very light and transparent silk crepe, to the chrome green vest, to the gypsy sash wrapped around her waist.

The jewels are then painted with equal mastery: the pearls shine with a cold, almost lunar whiteness; as does the silver slave bracelet, together with the other jewels that adorn the woman.

The earrings and the jewel on the forehead, probably a maang tikka, a typical female ornament of Indian tradition, whose golden glow is enhanced by the blue of the lapis lazuli and the vermilion of the coral beads.

Sofia Grancini was a Milanese painter active in the last decade of the 19th century and unjustly forgotten; the painting presented here is a true masterpiece that will surely succeed in taking such a talented artist out of the oblivion into which she has unfortunately ended up.
Grancini not only had innate pictorial qualities, but also an excellent artistic education, obtained at the Brera Academy, in years in which women students were very few, even less than a fifth.

Phidias Antiques awaits you at Modenantiquaria from 8 to 16 February, at ModenaFiere!

The two large panels, attributed to Giovanni Francesco Gessi by Prof. Daniele Benati, playfully depict two episodes featuring a young girl intent on her work and a small cupid.

In “Helpful Eros”, after having put down his bow and arrows in the foreground, Eros picks up the ball of yarn that a spinner has dropped on the ground.

In “Spiteful Eros”, after having dropped the spinning wheel, Eros steals the spindle from another girl who is threatening him with the distaff.

The two panels come from the important Zambeccari collection, sold in 1884 to the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and then to the current Pinacoteca, which owns two other paintings of similar subjects.

Since the Zambeccari inventory of 1796 records as works by Giovanni Francesco Gessi a panel with “Two Cupids in the Village” and three others of similar dimensions grouping them under the same title of “School of Love”, it is clear that two of them should be identified with the paintings of Fondantico.

Fondantico by Tiziana Sassoli awaits you at Modenantiquaria to amaze you with other unparalleled masterpieces including a breathtaking Guercino, soon online!

Modenantiquaria from 8 to 16 February at ModenaFiere.

Giovanni Francesco Gessi
Helpful Eros, c. 1612
Spiteful Eros, c. 1612
Oil on panel

This extraordinary masterpiece comes from the disappeared Oratory of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin in Reggio Emilia, near the church of Saint Francis,commissioned by Ludovico Tacoli.
It later became the property of the marquises Bagnesi Bellincini of Modena and in 1960 it passed to the Grossi family.

The attribution of the “Tacoli altarpiece” to Giovanni Antonio Bazzi was anything but simple.

Initially attributed by Filippo Todini to Antonio da Crevalcore, it only found its correct attribution in 2014 thanks to the study of Antonio Buitoni.

Buitoni brought the unknown figure of Giovanni Antonio Bazzi to the surface, uniting the initials “IO.AN.B.MCCCCC” on the back of the altarpiece, deciphered in 1985 by Sgarbi as “Giovanni Antonio Aspertini”, with that of the frieze of the left transept of Saint John the Evangelist in Parma (IO ATO B.P. /M/CC/CCC/XIII) and with that of a lost fresco of the adjacent convent described in the nineteenth century as signed “JO.AN.B.P” (dated 1501).

Cantore Galleria Antiquaria and the Madonna with Child and Saints await you at Modenantiquaria from 8 to 16 February, at ModenaFiere.

GIOVANNI ANTONIO BAZZI
Madonna with Child and Saints
known as the Tacoli altarpiece, c. 1490
Tempera on panel

In those extraordinary decades that ran from the early sixteenth century to the middle of the century, Parma, like other centres in the Po Valley, Mantua and Ferrara, to name just the closest, lives its golden age in the field of figurative arts, first and foremost due to the presence of two artists of immense calibre, Correggio and Parmigianino.

Following Correggio and Parmigianino, an entire generation of artists made Parma one of the liveliest centres of the Po Valley, from Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli to Giorgio Gandini Del Grano, from Bertoja to Michelangelo Anselmi.

Of all these Anselmi is certainly the most refined and elegant, but the reconstruction of his activity has been a long and troubled journey, also due to Vasari’s mistake in speaking of “a Michelangelo of Sienese origin but became parmesan“. As studies in recent years and the works of Eugenio Riccomini and Elisabetta Fadda have highlighted, all of Anselmi’s activity must be read in a Parma key. In the early 1520’s, he worked with Correggio on the decoration of the church of Saint John the Evangelist. Here the influence of Correggio, but also Raphael and Roman pictorial culture, recognizable.

This small, delightful panel belongs to the next phase, when Anselmi’s language becomes more complex in contact with the works of Parmigianino, who returned to Emilia after the Sack of Rome.

We have known about the history of the work since about the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was reported by Waagen in the collection of Sir Francis Baring, first Baron of Northbrook and member of the famous dynasty of bankers.

Carlo Orsi awaits you at Modenantiquaria from 8 to 16 February at ModenaFiere.

Michelangelo ANSELMI
Madonna and Child, Saint Catherine and Saint Clare, c. 1530
Oil on panel

Great Protagonist of the 2025 Edition: Carlo Orsi with the “GAROFALO” (Benvenuto Tisi) and the “Madonna with Child”, oil on panel from 1512 c.

The painting boasts a prestigious provenance: the panel comes from the collections of the Royal House of Württemberg, as attested by the documents kept in the archive of the Columbus Art Museum (Columbus, Ohio).

The painting was probably purchased by one of the two predecessors of Wilhelm II (1848 – 1921), namely Wilhelm I (1781 – 1864) or Charles I (1823 – 1891), both of whom were passionate collectors and responsible for the creation of the Royal Collections of Württenberg.

After several changes of ownership, in 1931 the painting was purchased by an American collector, Frederick Schumacher of Columbus, Ohio, who in 1957 left his collection to the local museum.

In 2010, the museum decided to sell the painting along with other important ancient masterpieces in order to raise funds for new acquisitions.

The first publication of the painting was by Bernard Berenson who included it in the latest edition of Italian Pictures of the Renaissance.

Scholars such as Andrea Ugolini and Anna Maria Fioravanti Baraldi have emphasized the importance of the painting in the context of Garofalo’s youthful production.

Garofalo’s encounter with Raphael‘s works probably occurred at the end of 1512 or in the first months of 1513. In the preceding years his works had been in a continuous evolution; Giorgio Vasari, who met Garofalo, recalls how Garofalo and Giorgione were friends.

Works such as this Madonna with Child or the large canvas painted in November 1512 for Alfonso d’Este with Athena and Poseidon (Dresden, Gemäldegalerie) show intense landscape backgrounds with nuanced tones closed by bluish mountains that cannot fail to recall Giorgione’s models.

Carlo Orsi awaits you at Modenantiquaria from 8 to 16 February at ModenaFiere.

Benvenuto Tisi, il GAROFALO
Madonna with Child, c. 1512
Oil on panel

MAURIZIO NOBILE FINE ART and GAETANO GANDOLFI, “Mary breastfeeding Jesus, and Saint Joseph” (Holy Family), 1734, oil on canvas.

Note the rarity of this Madonna of milk: Gandolfi, at the end of that century that saw him as a protagonist on the vast stage of European art, reinterprets the ancient subject with extraordinary delicacy of accents.

Even in a theme that might appear predictable, Gaetano knows how to impose iconographic innovations that find correspondence in the frank certainty of the rendering, of the setting and of the coloristic balance, conceived according to a harmony of shades far from the chromatic shrillness of the youthful paintings that sounds in response to the prevailing neoclassical taste.

Modenantiquaria awaits you from 8 to 16 February 2025 at ModenaFiere.

This thirtieth edition of Petra saw the birth of two new thematic areas “DOMUS PETRA” by Giulio Cappellini, the hybridization between indoor and outdoor in the city, and “SLOW GARDEN LIFESTYLE“, by Marta Meda and Luca Fois, an installation that explores, thanks to a selection of high design objects and materials from the most prestigious Italian and international brands, the new aesthetics of the landscape.

We thank the architects and designers who contributed to the creation of this new project:
Antonella Grossi
Marta Meda
Luca Fois
Giulio Cappellini
Leonardo Talarico
Ilaria Marelli

We thank the “Friends of the Landscape” Committee made up of:
Mauro Felicori – Councilor for Culture and Landscape of the Emilia Romagna Region
Gianluca Cristoni – President Biohabitat
Marco Filippucci – President of the Emilia Romagna Architects Federation
Luca Fois – Creative Advisor
Antonella Grossi – ModenaFiere Consultant
Marco Momoli – CEO of ModenaFiere
Ruggero Moncada Di Paternò – Architect
Roberto Pasini – Full Professor of Landscape Architecture – ALMA Mater Studiorum University of Bologna
Judith Wade – President of Grandi Giardini Italiani

Thanks to Gianluca Cristoni and to Daniela Campogrande for the setup!

Thanks to all the exhibitors:
DOMUS PETRA:
Artelinea
Cassina
CC Tapis
Ceramica Flaminia
Ethimo
Icone Luce
Lapis Vitae
Olmar
Paolelli Garden
Steeles
Travertino Toscano
Treesse
Vetrine Empoli

PETRA:
Antichità Amore
Antichità Davide
Antihità San Martino
Antichità Storchi Paolo
Antichità Tuci Rita
Antonio Magni Antichità
Arte Arredo Andriollo
Atelier du Bois
Bovo Alberto
Campagnola Restauro – Restauro opere d’arte
Copetti antiquari
Eurekart di Paolo Sessa
Green Code
Historya restauri e decorazioni
Il mercante Antichità
Miele di Giovanna dalla Turca
Orvieto Arte
Pavarani Enrico “Atelier del Design”
Piera Giglio
Salpa di Pisani Paolo
Scalabrini Marco Antichità

Thanks to:
Order of architects, planners, landscape architects and conservators of Modena

We look forward to seeing you next year at Petra ModenaFiere!

Here we are with the second thanks news dedicated to the antique dealers who supported us and who we hope will be with us next year too!

THANK YOU:
Antiques Scarapazzi
E.L.A. Antichità
Antichità G.N. di Luciano Guagenti
Liberty Art Nouveau di Tina Biazzi e figlie
Galleria La Torre
Galleria “Le due Torri”
Santa Barbara Art Gallery
L.M. Gallery
Blu Old Sheffield
Antichità Fabrizio Fallavena
Galleria Mason
Arte-Moda
Merigo Art Books
Bertacchi Orfeo Antichità
Bulgarelli Fausto
Gems and Antiques
Milani Antichità
Big/Ciaccioarte
SA Fine Art
B& Facchini
Galleria Giamblanco
Galleria Roberto Ducci
Art Decoratif
Ossimoro Galleria d’Arte
Galleria d’Arte San Barnaba
Galerie de Cicco
Les Galeries du Luxembourg
Egidi Madeinitaly
Quadreria dell’800
Conti Caponi Galleria
Gallerie Maspes
Art Studio Pedrazzini
Antichità La Bagatelle
Federico Andrisani
Galleria 900
Optima Cecchetto Antiquario
Barbieri Fine Art
Il mercante antichità
I Volpini
Atelier du Bois
Bottega d’Arte
Sine Tempore Studio
Galleria d’Arte Bentivegna
Odisseus Antiques
Paolo Campopiano
Amici delle Gallerie Estensi

Ancient art conquers audiences and sales!

Target achieved: the quality of the galleries present is very high – with the most important nationally and big international names – and of the works proposed, sales are good.

SCULPTURA:
Botticelli Antichità
Alessandra Di Castro
Mearini Fine Art
Cantore Galleria Antiquaria
Secol-Art di Davide Masoero
Carlo Orsi
Walter Padovani
Longari Arte Milano
Altomani & Sons
Giovanni Asioli Martini Antiquariato
Brun Fine Art
Maurizio Nobile Fine Art
Antonacci Lapiccirella Fine Art
Galleria Gomiero
Galleria del Caminetto
Copetti Antiquari

“Ancient art is going through an excellent moment, in the sense that great masterpieces are holding up the market perfectly, proof of which is that after two three hundred years of collecting ancient art is still the most coveted product in Italy.

I always refer to the Italian market because I consider Italy the true homeland of ancient art, sculpture is an essential, fundamental part of it.

The work I am exhibiting at Sculptura 2024, is realized by a Venetian sculptor from Treviso, Giovanni Comin, between 600 and 700.

The work perfectly represents our times, the times of vanity, years in which we focus too much on the external appearance, on beauty and on what appears, sometimes losing sight of the true meanings of life!” Bruno Botticelli

Thank you Fabrizio for honoring us with your presence!

“Ancient art is a niche market, a market for the sophisticated person, but Modenantiquaria has always been a place where all woodworm lovers always come.

I began my career as a dealer here in 1999 and I remember this audience who was passionate about paintings, sculptures, furniture and tapestries.

This is Modena, a beautiful market where you can find everything and more and it makes us understand again how much love for art and for the art market exists in the Italian province.”

Thanks Fabrizio Moretti

“Total immersion in one of the peculiar dimensions of Italy, the country with the greatest antiquarian intensity in the world, where creative production and the pleasure of being surrounded by it have their privileged residence. It is the Modenantiquaria now in its XXXVII Edition, the most important showcase in Italy, where the best antique dealers in the country, and beyond, meet with buyers from all over the world to give circulation to beauty.

Around it are celebrated the marriage of passions and business, pleasures and investments, furniture, paintings, objects and a special section for sculpture, a large department dedicated to exteriors, the traditional PETRA, classic and modern, ancient and contemporary, every predilection can be found here its satisfaction and also for those who are not directly interested in purchasing it is an extraordinary opportunity to form, forge and increase one’s taste.

Wandering around the stands and pavilions of Modenantiquaria is truly a rewarding experience.”
Tommaso Ricci

Modenantiquaria: the Beauty of History, the Prestige of Tradition until February 18th at ModenaFiere!

LIVE shots live from Modenantiquaria 2024: great Timeless Art!

Lampronti Gallery – Il Correggio 22
Altomani & Sons – The Carracci 11
Mearini Fine Art – Guido Reni 4

Timetables:
from Monday to Wednesday from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm
from Thursday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

Entrance ticket €15 on sale at ModenaFiere
Reduced admission €12
For reductions, consult our website on the INFO Times and Tickets page

Modenantiquaria: the Beauty of History, the Prestige of Tradition until February 18th at ModenaFiere!

LIVE shots live from Modenantiquaria 2024: great Timeless Art!

Longari Arte Milano – Guido Reni 5
Enrico Gallerie d’Arte – Il Guercino 5
Verdini Antiques – Il Guercino 1

Timetables:
from Monday to Wednesday from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm
from Thursday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

Entrance ticket €15 on sale at ModenaFiere
Reduced admission €12
For reductions, consult our website on the INFO Times and Tickets page

The lion is the image of royalty and the embodiment of heroic debut.

In Buddhism, the lion symbolizes courage, dignity, and stability.
It is believed that Buddha, in one of his incarnations, had the appearance of a lion.

In China, the lion was associated with the idea of power.

The characteristics of the lion can be admired in the images of mythical creatures, such as: the sphinx, the griffin, and the chimera.

Images of lionesses as guards are common in Egypt, Assyria and Babylon, India.
In medieval bestiaries, the lion is endowed with the ability to sleep with his eyes open, and for this reason, he is also heard as the embodiment of an alert guard for your home!

In heraldry, the lion represents strength, virtue and prudence.
The lion in Christianity stands out as an ambivalent figure.
The roar of the lion is like the word of God and the devil, “like a roaring lion.”

The lion, as interpreted by Jerome, symbolizes the evangelist Mark, who announces the royal dignity of Christ.
It is also the emblem of the Son of God and endowed with a penchant for contemplation, asceticism and solitude.

Dante describes it as a symbol of pride.

In many esoteric traditions, the lion is a symbol of the sun.

In Freemasonry, the lion represents power and glory; the top of the Royal Arch, where the sun returns during the summer solstice.

In the mysteries of Mithras, those who successfully passed the tests were called “lions”.

Isaiah’s prophecy provides the biblical symbolism of the lion, resting peacefully beside the sheep.

In Christian legend, we find Daniel with the lions in the den together.

For Jung, the lion in nature is a symbol of hidden passions, it can indicate the risk of being absorbed by the unconscious.

In alchemy, the lion is the symbol of raw, untreated material.
In combination with three other animals, it is an element of the earth.

The Earth lion is the enemy of the celestial eagle, master of nature, spokesperson of strength and support of the masculine principle.
It is the actual “red” symbol.
The winged lion is the element of fire: “Philosophical Fire”.
Two lions represent constant struggle, sunlight, morning, royalty, and victory.

In Greece, the lion was the emblem of the calendar.
In spring Dionysus could take on the appearance of a lion.

In heraldic systems, lion means prudence, firmness and strength of mind.

Impressive and proud lions await you in Petra 2024 until February 18!

“WE ARE VERY HAPPY WITH THE RESULTS WE HAVE HAD SO FAR, 120 ANTIQUE GALLERIES for an edition of true excellence.

The event is the LEADER event in our country for high-level antiques and is always accompanied by two other important events: “PETRA”, this year with a truly new style dealing with all that concerns the furnishing of both classical and contemporary art of outdoor spaces and landscapes, and SCULPTURA, a section dedicated to sculptural works from the 13th to the 20th century.”

GREAT EVENTS IN MODENA UNTIL FEBRUARY 18!!!”

Modenantiquaria: the Beauty of History, the Prestige of Tradition until February 18th at ModenaFiere!

LIVE shots from Modenantiquaria 2024: great Timeless Art!

Cantore Galleria Antiquaria – Guido Reni 1
Fondantico di Tiziana Sassoli – I Carracci 1
Phidias Antiques – Guido Reni 2

Timetables:
from Monday to Wednesday from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm
from Thursday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

Entrance ticket €15 on sale at ModenaFiere
Reduced admission €12
For reductions, consult our website.

The “Jerome” squirrel by Red Hook is the realization of an idea that combines imagination with absolute quality.

Technological research inspired by creativity.

An experience, a journey into the exceptional nature of everyday life.

Jerome the squirrel is an elegant guardian of light and color!

Beauty has no dimension and Red Hook has created Jerome XXL which is giant like your dreams and Jerome medium so you can always have it next to you!

Come to Petra until February 18th at ModenaFiere to choose your favorite size!

Timetables:
from Monday to Wednesday from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm
from Thursday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

Tickets:
Entrance ticket €15 on sale at ModenaFiere
Reduced access at the price of €12

The Mirco Cattai Gallery presents the Kazak carpets, among the most significant of this area: Kazak with swastikas, karaciof and Bordjialu, a large Star Kazak and three Transilvania carpets, a Lotto ushak, a double niche and a Tintoretto ushak.

The making of a carpet has a very rich meaning.

The carpet’s spine, the warp yarns, evoke the immutable and divine axis of the world, which connects the earth to the sky, while the horizontal weft yarns symbolize the infinite weaving of worlds and destinies. The carpet is an image of the universe, where creatures are knotted and woven by God on the chain of his omniscience.

Depending on its decoration, it is also an abstract figure of the soul, its balance and its complexity.

Each carpet is a world in miniature and reflects the ideals, values and life of a community. It leads to the invisible, to the threshold of the soul.

Mirco Cattai awaits you in Modenantiquaria from 10 to 18 February: pure magic to experience!

Orvieto Arte, the great protagonist of Petra 2024, has real “winter gardens” in store for you, customizable in size, paint, number and type of doors and windows; heavy and solid structures that can be paved with stone, tuff, marble, travertine, wood or brick.

A rest area for you and your family, a study area surrounded by greenery, a winter garden to shelter your plants, your flowers or lemons!

Orvieto Arte awaits you in Petra until February 18th at ModenaFiere!

Timetables:
from Monday to Wednesday from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm
from Thursday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

Tickets:
Entrance ticket €15 on sale at ModenaFiere
Reduced admission €12
For reductions, consult the website on the INFO page Timetables and tickets.

Animalier portraiture pays particular attention to the ethological component, paying a real homage to the animal kingdom both in terms of morphology and character, often placed in anthropocentric contexts, the subjects never lose the ancestral nature of the species.

The artists who dedicated their careers to this theme, which for centuries remained a niche genre where the human figure is almost totally excluded or placed in the background, were first and foremost great enthusiasts and connoisseurs.

After an accurate study, they spent endless moments of observation in close contact with the subjects, exposed to any atmospheric condition, creating an infinite number of sketches to capture the best pose to translate onto canvas or transform into material as regards sculpture.

Many works, as in this case, are precious testimonies of the evolutionary phase that concerns the various species. In the dog world as well as in the equestrian world, breeds have undergone significant transformations based on the aptitude developed in activities in close contact with humans.

RV Art Gallery Studio IS WAITING FOR YOU among cats, dogs, horses… man’s best friends… because Modenantiquaria is also this!

This is a rare pair of modeled stucco objects depicting oriental characters, with robes that determine a high rank of belonging, in use as a compendium of furnishings in the Chinese cabinets present in the Savoy Royal Palaces (and not only) from the first half of the 18th century.

To highlight this, two images are explanatory and exhaustive, one taken from the catalog of the 1963 Piedmontese Baroque exhibition curated by Vittorio Viale, it is Room ; the other is the full-page publication in the series Mobili Regionali Italiani – Il Piemonte by Elio Quaglino, Ed. Gorlich, of the female figure.

The exceptionality is the recent discovery of the male figure on the antiques market which makes these objects UNIQUE.
The provenance also certifies the passage from the prestigious Antique Gallery of Armando Colombari in Turin (the paper stamps of the time are present) and subsequently to a prestigious private collection in Turin (which intends to remain anonymous).

The rarity of the objects is further strengthened by the fact that similar works in polychrome painted stucco were often created in Piedmont, of which, however, nineteenth-century replicas also exist.

Secol Art awaits you with the magic of the East at Sculptura 2024 from 10 to 18 February at ModenaFiere!

COUPLE OF DIGNITARIES
Modeled and patinated stucco, painted with golden motifs and traces of profiles in the tone of blue
Piedmontese modeller of the mid-18th century.
H. 74 cm. diameter of the base approximately 20 cm.

JOIE is an elegant table football for true connoisseurs!!
Completely made of metal, with attention to the smallest details with cork knobs and ball!

FLIP is a very comfortable and refined seat with two stations and a coordinated table which, when turned, transforms into a chaise longue with footrest, the maximum leisure to enjoy on your terrace or in your garden!!

We are waiting for you at Petra 2024…until February 18th, ModenaFiere Pad. B!

Timetables:
from Monday to Wednesday from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm
from Thursday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

Tickets:
Entrance ticket €15 on sale at ModenaFiere
Reduced access at the price of €12

Saturday 10 February, at 6.00 pm, Meeting Area pad. A,
“COLLECTING AND HERITAGE. Passions in comparison” with

Toto Bergamo Rossi, Director Venetian Heritage,
Alessandra Di Castro, Vice President of AAI,
Stefano Aluffi Pentini, Art Historian,
Tommaso Pasquali, Art Historian, Director of Palazzo Bentivoglio, Bologna

Leonardo Piccinini, moderator.

MODENANTIQUARIA: the Beauty of History, the Prestige of Tradition

UNTIL FEBRUARY 18th at ModenaFiere!

Fade is a family of furnishings that stands out for a vibrant surface and particular finishes that restore the effect of natural materials such as stone and granite.
Dream objects starting from:

Fade Coffee Table Structure, a low table that requires an HPL top, to be chosen separately.
Fade Chair, a comfortable armchair with a redone surface with finishes that appear natural.
Fade Table Lamp, a small waterfall of light that can be positioned anywhere.
The ridged surface of the base creates a singular play of shadows.
Fade Table Lamp Metal the new proposal that illuminates every room with a cascade of light.

Picta presents spectacular
Material bottles
Tower vases
Amphora vases
Conical Vases
Flower pots

all in scratched finish available in 3 colors, carbon black, sand and lava red.

Come to Petra to discover an enchanted world…handmaids and vestals for the protection of your home and family, mischievous elves who come to life, Olympian gods and winged lions await you until February 18th!

Timetables:
from Monday to Wednesday from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm
from Thursday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

Tickets:
Entrance ticket €15 on sale at ModenaFiere
Reduced access at the price of €12

The Novara sculptor Alessandro Rondoni (1841- post 1898) was one of the most talented students of Vincenzo Vela at the Albertina Academy in Turin, at least until 1867; he later perfected himself and worked in Rome and Naples.

Sira is one of his first compositions to have received widespread approval from the public and critics.

The subject chosen by the artist is taken from the historical novel, well known at the time, set in ancient Rome and entitled Fabiola or the Church of the Catacombs, published in 1854 by the high prelate of Irish origins (but born in Seville) N.P.S. Wiseman (later also Archbishop of Westminster).

It also featured the tragic story of the slave Sira owned by the young and beautiful mistress Fabiola. Sira in the novel has Middle Eastern origins and is of Christian faith.

In the interpretation given by the Italian sculptor, the slave wears a bracelet decorated with a cross and the monogram of Christ. Rondoni’s composition captures the moment following the wounding of Sira’s arm with a stiletto by the mistress, of pagan faith, offended by the words full of Christian brotherhood uttered by her slave.

Compared to the martyry and virginal figure of the slave outlined in the Irish prelate’s novel, the sacral component of the subject is somewhat toned down in Rondoni’s work, which connotes the young and beautiful figure of a human charge, at times sensual, well in line with the ‘realist’ taste of the time, so much so that the painter Costantino Abbatecola, commenting on the marble version today at the Gallery of Modern Art in Palermo, highlighted precisely these aspects with some emphasis, concluding: «one of those ideal slaves who would would drive a master who was lucky enough to own her and to understand the beauties of her face and heart to go mad.”
Sira awaits you in Phidias Antiques in Modenantiquaria 2024 until February 18th!

Alessandro Rondoni
“Sira”, 1873.
Polychrome marbles, burnished bronze and golden mosaic at the base.
Circular base with a rotating movement hinge.
Titled «SIRA» in capital letters and signed in italics «A. Rondoni / Rome» at the base.

Marco Longari returns to Modenantiquaria “with great vigor and enthusiasm – he states – because this is the first truly important event of the year.

It is an exhibition in which you really have a finger on the pulse of the situation in the world of art, an exhibition that has the patronage of the Association of Antique Dealers of Italy which guarantees a quality mark.

I present an object from my exhibition, this incredible “Lion’s Head“, a marble fragment probably from a shelf. It is a Lombard lion head from the late 13th and early 14th centuries.

I chose it because I find it to be a very modern object despite being so medieval. With this incredible decoration in the hair, it is an object that would look good among works of contemporary art.” concludes Longari.

Marco Longari, the great International Protagonist at Modenantiquaria 2024, awaits you until February 18th at the Guido Reni 5 stand.

Thank you Marco Longari for honoring us with your presence!

Architect Antonella Grossi, Petra 2024 Consultant, talks to us about this great, completely renovated Edition:

“Petra in its 30th Edition wanted to transform itself by trying to open the world of antique garden furniture towards the themes of design, outdoor, landscape and contemporary equipment and furniture.

This first edition in which the classic is combined with the contemporary sees the presence of two installations:

the first is Interior design with the inclusion of elements designed by international designers in which the indoor part is closely related to the outdoor part as in the ancient houses in Pompei.

The second installation concerns the SLOW GARDEN LIFESTYLE curated by Marta Meda and Luca Fois, in which contemporary objects inspire everyday external life.”

Daughters of Zeus and Eurymone, the three girls are the personification of female beauty and grace. The Greek poet Hesiod in his Theogony recalls their names: Euphrosyne (the Joy), Aglae, (the Splendor) and Talìa, (the Prosperity).

Divinities placed between heaven and earth, with the single, very important task of implementing harmony in the world through the arts that make the soul of men more noble, the Three Graces are among the most positive figures of the mythology of the ancients.

Among the Greeks they were called Charites (in ancient Greek Χάριτες) and became the Graces (in Latin Gratiae) in Roman mythology.

Probably since the origin of the myth linked to the cult of nature and vegetation, they are also the goddesses of the joy of living and spread the liveliness of Nature in the hearts of gods and mortals.

The Three Graces, joy, splendor and prosperity, await you in Verdini Antiques, stand Guercino 1, at Modenantiquari 2024 until February 18th!

PETRA 2024 LIVE photos!

From Slow Garden Lifestyle, by Marta Meda and Luca Fois, for you the “DiamondFire” barbecue “ELEGANCE” collection by DiamondFire.

DiamondFire transforms the way of cooking, thanks to its unique and unmistakable technical characteristics that combine cooking excellence with a modern design style that is easily adaptable to any living and dining context.

The DIAMONDFIRE Barbecue has a double cooking zone: the first directly on the grill, placed right above the brazier, the second on the lava stone of volcanic origin which collects and separates the fats.

Honest, erudite, with Junoesque beauty and languid charm: the Heroine of Christianity “Saint Ursula” by Simone Pignoni by Maurizio Nobile Fine Art.

Ursula is a figure of Saint celebrated above all in the Middle Ages thanks to her unshakable firmness in her faith, pushed to the point of martyrdom.

His story has spanned the centuries between history and legend, inspiring the compositions of writers, musicians and artists of colour; among the latter, the Flemish Memling (1434 – 1494), Carpaccio (circa 1460 – 1525/1526), Tintoretto (1518 – 1594) and Caravaggio (1571 – 1610).

The story tells of a beautiful princess, Ursula, daughter of the Christian king of Britain.

Honest and wise, she lived by consecrating her life choices to the Lord when she was desired by the powerful and overbearing king of England as his son’s bride.

The messengers sent by the king received the refusal of Orsola’s father who instead did not refuse the marriage request, after having been inspired by God in a dream, who instructed her to ask for 10 virgins alongside to go on a pilgrimage to Rome, alongside others a thousand virgins for himself and for each of the others. Another condition was that the betrothed converted to Christianity.

It took 3 years to prepare the ships for the large group of girls, three years to prepare for the new life and the conversion to the Christian faith of the betrothed, in the hope that he could then come to understand his vocation and had therefore renounced the I intend to marry her.

Once the conditions were accepted, preparations began, while the virgins came to gather from every part of the earth.

Under the leadership of Orsola, the immense procession set off crossing the sea at the English Channel with a fleet of eleven ships. The fleet landed in Gaul, and went up the Rhine to Switzerland; Orsola and her entourage continued the pilgrimage, reaching Rome, gathering crowds of faithful.

On their return, having arrived in Cologne which was at the time besieged by the Huns, the virgins were murdered by the barbarians.

Orsola was first spared by Attila who, struck by her beauty, wanted her as his wife; then, when she refused the tyrant, she was pierced with an arrow.

“Simone Pignoni, an artist of the 1600s, famous for his female representations, paints Orsola dying but at the same time languid and sensual, with a Junoesque beauty very dear to the painter.” Attilio Luigi Ametta.

SIMONE PIGNONI
Saint Ursula
Oil painting on canvas

A hymn to Nature, a fusion between ancient and contemporary for your garden or terrace: Petra 2024 is your dream come true!

We are waiting for you until February 18th at ModenaFiere, pavilion B!

Timetables:
from Monday to Wednesday from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm
from Thursday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm

Carlo Beretta was remembered in local literature, just over a decade after his death, as “the most famous sculptor that the city of Milan had at the time”.

Active in the first half of the eighteenth century, during his long career he had sculpted many statues for the cathedral of his city, but perhaps he had given his best on other construction sites, from the church of San Gaudenzio in Novara to the Castle of Belgioioso, where he was able demonstrate his particular skills as a modeler in wax and terracotta.

The four imaginary portraits confirm how Beretta’s most interesting results are linked to the use of plastic materials.

These four busts must be understood as genre figures, each intended to illustrate a human type which probably also had an allegorical meaning underlying it, a typology of works in some ways comparable to the so-called “character heads” which had been produced since the second half of the seventeenth century. in large quantities by the sculptors of the Serenissima, but which in the Lombard area was presented without the more loaded and grotesque expressive accents dear to their Venetian counterparts.

Walter Padovani awaits you at SCULPTURA 2024 until February 18th at ModenaFiere!

Carlo Beretta
(Milan 1687-1764)
Four allegorical portraits
Terracotta, h. 60cm

Petra 2024 is pure emotion!

Masterpieces of ancient and contemporary art for your green space: Petra is the place to make your wishes come true, we are waiting for you!

You can find the right solution for you here…at ModenaFiere until February 18th!

Petra is a world waiting to be discovered, a fusion between ancient and contemporary, a hymn to gardens and greenery!

Who was Mariano Fortuny?
Mariano Fortuny perfectly embodied the Wagnerian concept of a total work of art, a canon that animated all his inventions, inimitable mixes of styles and influences, which drew on the past or on remote cultures and places, created, however, with the most innovative technologies.
His haute couture garments and fabrics are unique and unparalleled, Fortuny was also a painter, engraver, photographer, set designer, creator of electric lamps and furnishing elements and a revolutionary in theatrical lighting.

Mariano Fortuny and Henriette established their atelier in Venice, a laboratory located on the top floor of Palazzo Pesaro degli Orfei – later transformed into a museum – where some of the most extraordinary creations of the twentieth century in the fields of fashion and design came to light.
Pleated silk dresses, velvet coats and shawls with intricate ethnic motifs are an expression of timeless style, so much so that they can be worn today as items of clothing of unparalleled contemporary refinement. The lamps he designed are also current and modern, and are still chosen by international architects and designers as precious furnishing elements.

Vincenzo Gemito, a timeless great, dedicated a masterpiece from the Arabian Nights to him!
Certainly, the instinctive temperament, the equally disinherited youth and the realist training contributed to the sensual and sentimental warmth in narrating the experience of reality.
Of a restless and overbearing nature, he spent a poor and turbulent adolescence, bonding with his peer Antonio Mancini, known as Totonno, even in his early artistic experiences. He attended the studios of two sculptors: he was a boy in the workshop of Emanuele Caggiano and, at twelve years old, of Stanislao Lista, promoter of the study of life in sculpture.

On April 23rd. In 1864 he was admitted to follow courses at the Royal Institute of Fine Arts, but rather sought inspiration in the alleys of the ancient center and in the Guillaume circus located at the Bellini theatre. His debut at the exhibition of the Society promoting fine arts of Naples where he exhibited the Player dates back to 1868. In this work – purchased by Vittorio Emanuele II for the Capodimonte collections – he adopted pictorial and vibrant modeling to suggest the concreteness of the visual experience and the spontaneity of the Neapolitan vernacular reality.

Gemito confirmed these formal innovations in the Portrait of the painter Petrocelli (Naples, Minozzi collection) created around 1869, as proof of the intolerance towards the academic codification of sculptural art, which was then moving between the uncertainties of romanticism and the latest results of the current canovian. Furthermore, together with other artists rebelling against official art – including, in addition to Mancini, Giovanni Battista Amendola, Vincenzo Buonocore, Achille D’Orsi, Luigi Fabron, Ettore Ximenes – Gemito rented a studio in the former convent of S Andrea delle Dame. Here the delicate heads dated 1870-72 and preserved in Naples took shape, admirable for the liveliness of their looks and naturalness of attitudes, such as Moretto, Scugnizzo and Fiociniere, Fanciulla velata and Malatiello; these sculptures were made in terracotta, a plastic medium congenial to the realistic interpretation of the subject, due to the free variations of planes and the mobile luminous vibrations.

Vincenzo GEMITO (Naples 1852 – 1929)
Portrait of Mariano Fortuny, c. 1880

16 prestigious galleries for an unforgettable exhibition to say the least!

Botticelli Antichità
Alessandra Di Castro
Brun Fine Art
Antonacci Lapiccirella Fine Art
Altomani & Sons
Maurizio Nobile Fine Art,
Carlo Orsi
Cantore Galleria Antiquaria
Longari Arte Milano
Asioli Martini
Galleria del Caminetto
Walter Padovani
Galleria Gomiero
Secol Art di Davide Masoero
Mearini Fine Art
Copetti Antiquari

31 Works from One Thousand and One Nights until February 18th at ModenaFiere, Pavilion A!

The Domus Petra by Giulio Cappellini is unmissable, a true hybridization between indoor and outdoor in the city.

The Domus Petra is an exploration of the desire for green of those who live in cities where design and architecture dialogue with landscaping and history.

LIVE shots of the prestigious Galleria Fondantico by Tiziana Sassoli, AliceFineArt and 800/900 Artstudio.

Modenantiquaria awaits you until February 18th at ModenaFiere, Pavilion A.

Prestigious galleries, Timeless masterpieces:
the Beauty of History and the Prestige of Tradition await you at ModenaFiere until February 18th!

In Modenantiquaria you can also find Diabolik and his legendary car in Secol-Art Antichità by Davide Masoero!

Timeless masterpieces of unparalleled beauty await you at Modenantiquaria until February 18th, stand Guido Reni 19!

Petra is a world to discover, a fusion between ancient and contemporary that will amaze you!

LIVE shots from ModenaFiere!

To be continued… stay connected for other photos of Domus Petra, Slow Garden Lifestyle and …

This sculptural masterpiece in bronze by Aldo Andreani by MAURIZIO NOBILE FINE ART is suggestive and disturbing.

SUBLIME DANCER Perhaps not everyone knows the story we tell below.

The Russian naturalized Italian Jia Ruskaja, stage name of Eugenia Borisenko (Kerch, Crimea, 1902 – Rome, 1970), after classical and musical studies, moved to Italy, dedicating herself to dance. Belonging to the so-called free dance movement, he chose a style that was linked to the postulates of the Greek-Mediterranean trend already adopted at the beginning of the century by Isadora Duncan.

Nicknamed by her contemporaries the “Aristocrat of dance”, Jia Ruskaja moved to Rome in 1923 making her debut at the Teatro degli Indipendenti directed by Anton Giulio Bragaglia.

After opening a dance school in Milan, he gave his choreographic contribution to the shows of the Greek Theater of Syracuse and in other places of equal structure and environment.

From 1932 to 1934 she was co-director of the Teatro alla Scala Dance School and in 1936 she presented her school at the Berlin Olympics.

In 1940 she moved to Rome where she founded the Royal Dance School which in 1948 transformed into the National Dance Academy, of which she held the position of director until her death.

Aldo Andreani portrays the dancer during her Milanese period, the moment of her greatest Italian fame. Suggestive and moving, the bronze is set on the diagonal, ensuring that the synthetic portrait of Ruskaja, composed and with hollow eyelids reminiscent of Wildtia, is found in the center of the large cloak that encircles her bare shoulders.

The nervous jerk of the head turning to the right then highlights the presence of the young woman’s long braids, a brilliant compositional complement that is anything but secondary to the work.

Andreani exhibited this bronze at the XIX Venice Biennale in 1934 and presented it again in 1938 at the XXXV Anni exhibition of the Pesaro Gallery in Milan.

Maurizio Nobile Fine Art awaits you at Modenantiquaria 2024 from 10 to 18 February at ModenaFiere!

Aldo Andreani Mantua, 1887 – Milan, 1971 Jia Ruskaja, (Portrait of Jia Ruskaja),

(Portrait), (1934).
Bronze h. 57cm.
Signed: Aldo Andreani
Exhibitions: Venice, 1934; Milan, 1938.

MAURIZIO NOBILE FINE ART awaits you from 10 to 18 February at ModenaFiere!

Greek legend tells of Venus as She who incited love in the hearts of men and gods and lorded over all creation with this great power.

Venus is the Goddess of those who risk for love: “You must dare: Venus herself helps those who have courage.
If a young man tries a threshold first, she indulges him and if a girl with the teeth of a key opens the door ajar, it is Venus who teaches her to creep furtively from the soft bed, to place her foot without making a noise, to exchange in front of his man eloquent gestures. and to hide messages of love in agreed gestures.
But he does not teach it to everyone: only to those who are not held back by indolence or to those who are not prevented by fear from getting out of bed on a dark night.”” TIBULLUS.

Zeus (for some sources her father) made her marry Hephaestus or Vulcan who she immediately betrayed with Ares (or in Latin Mars).
Helios the Sun revealed the betrayal to Hephaestus so the God Vulcan made a golden net and imprisoned them in his embrace, taking the cheaters to the other gods and asking for revenge.

The Goddesses left out of pity or modesty but the Gods greatly appreciated the forms of Venus: Hermes (Mercury in Latin) expressed himself very transparently saying he would not have minded staying in Mars’ place.

And so…Venus made him her next lover: from this great love was born Cupid, the chubby and spiteful god of Love.

Even the GREAT GREEK HERO, Aeneas, is the son of the Goddess and Anchises!

ALTOMANI & SONS FOR SCULPTURE III Edition presents a terracotta MARINE VENUS which contains all the grace and triumphal Beauty of the Goddess.

With an elegant and contemporary appearance, Nomad is a portable and rechargeable table lamp that offers bright and functional lighting both indoors and outdoors, having an IP65 protection.

Jura Spike is contemporary design forged in solid brass, excellent for outdoor lighting even in harsh environments. It is fully adjustable to ensure precise aiming, and is ideal for gardens and terraces.

The Harvard Lantern reinterprets the traditional outdoor lantern, adding a bold, textured black powder-coated finish that provides just the right protection for outdoor environments.

Contemporary in design and made of concrete with integrated LEDs for optimal efficiency, Dunbar 160 still has a soft look and is recommended for various environments, including coastal areas. It won the Red Dot Design Award.

Pimlico 400 is an outdoor wall light with an unusual and contemporary shape; dimmable, it provides surprising ambient lighting thanks to its cylindrical transparent glass diffuser.