On Tuesday, June 27, in the prestigious Genoese headquarters of Castello Mackenzie, Cambi Casa d'Aste presents the exclusive Old Masters live auction, an extraordinary event involving works of ancient painting from different eras from important private collections.

“Old Master Paintings and Drawings is one of the historic departments of the auction house and has now become an important landmark for Italian and international collectors both in the assignment phase and in the purchase of works. The objective pursued by our department is in fact to devote the utmost care and seriousness in the research and enhancement of unpublished or published paintings, always trying to offer a wide and varied selection of works, from Italian and European contexts, ranging from the XIV century up to the late eighteenth century.

The essential criteria that underlie our catalogues, especially for auctions dedicated to Old Masters, are certainly the quality of the paintings presented, the rarity of the subjects and artists proposed and a good provenance, in order to be able to respond in this way to the requests of even the most demanding collectors and amateurs.” Explains Gianni Minozzi, Director of the Department of Ancient Paintings and Drawings of Cambi Casa d'Aste.

Among the most interesting lots, a still life with fruit basket and vanitas stands out (estimate 140,000 - 180,000 euros) created by an important artist of the first half of the seventeenth century known as the Master of the Acquavella still life. The work, a reflection on the precariousness of existence, is an example of very high quality painting of which the sense of contemplation of the objects, the decisive naturalism and the diagonal light cut, reveal belonging to the strict Caravaggio-like sphere, albeit just softened by a lightening of the shadows, a lightening of the colors and the softening of the material.

Between the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 1720s the Holy Family with San Giovannino and Sant'Anna was instead placed, an important unpublished work recently attributed by critics directly to the workshop of Pietro Paolo Rubens ( 1577 Siegen - 1640 Antwerp), which takes up with some variations the composition of the famous panel of the Art Institute of Chicago (estimate 60,000 - 80,000 euros).

Another important painting, a beautiful View of a garden with peacock, parrots and rabbits by Angelo Maria Crivelli, the Milanese artist considered one of the best animal painters on the Italian art scene between the 17th and 18th centuries (estimate 15,000 -20,000 euros.) Also known like Crivellone, during his life he worked in the service of the great Lombard nobility and the Savoy court, creating works of great scenic impact that responded well to the decorative taste of the time, such as the famous canvases for the Stupinigi hunting lodge or those currently preserved in the office of the President of the Republic at the Quirinale.

In this composition Crivelli also creates a splendid landscape, setting the scene inside a luxuriant park that extends as far as the eye can see, decorated with classical architecture, around which a rich variety of birds and some rabbits are portrayed with maximum naturalism .

Of particular interest is also The Preaching to the Friars, a large canvas by Alessandro Magnasco (Genoa, 1667 - 1749), a masterpiece by one of the most innovative protagonists of the Italian artistic panorama of the second half of the seventeenth century. The vibrant and highly expressive style, characterized by rapid angular brushstrokes, darting flashes of light and nervous application of splashes of colour, differs from the lively quavers present in the works of the contemporary Genoese masters, revealing a chiaroscuro emphasis typical of Lombard art, with which Magnasco came into contact during his apprenticeship in Milan in the workshop of Filippo Abbiati (estimate: 60,000 - 80,000 euros).

Finally, the pair of paintings depicting river landscapes with shepherds and peasants by Vittorio Amedeo Cignaroli, one of the best landscape painters of the Piedmontese eighteenth century, deserves mention. Active at the Savoy court and employed by the local elite, this artist revolutionized the landscape genre with renewed sensitivity, transforming it into the client's favorite subject for their own representation and celebration. The Savoy countryside, in which the nobility loved to devote themselves to otium, staying in their residences or dedicating themselves to hunting, is presented in Cignaroli's works as a new Arcadia, in which the protagonists are shepherds and farmers who live serenely in close contact with a perfect and idealized nature (estimate: 30,000 - 40,000 euros).