The Hanbury Botanical Gardens. When nature becomes romantic beauty

Quakers believe that a garden should respect a divine order in which…

The Hanbury Botanical Gardens. When nature becomes romantic beauty

Quakers believe that a garden should respect a divine order in which…

The Hanbury Botanical Gardens. When nature becomes romantic beauty

Quakers believe that a garden should respect a divine order in which…

The Hanbury Botanical Gardens. When nature becomes romantic beauty

Interview by Luca Violo with Lady Carolyn Hanbury

Quakers believe that a garden should respect a divine order in which science, beauty and religion interact. I find that this is still the case today, and it is to the credit of the University that it has not turned it into a park or tried to make money out of it, but rather left it as close to nature as possible, so that it maintains a spirit of stillness and timelessness.

Nuvolo. Back and front

Just after the Second World War, during the process of reconstructing the cultural life of Italy, newly opened up towards democratic life in the rest of Europe and in the United States of America, there was a longing and craving to overcome the living conditions that had come about during the War. This was witnessed in the cinema, in literature and in the visual arts and it produced a general thirst for a renewal of society.

From 1948 in Rome, in particular, the artistic community hosted the likes of Afro, Capogrossi, Scialoja, Burri, Mafai, Cagli, Mannucci, Colla, Prampolini, Dorazio and his group Forma 1 (with Accardi, Turcato, Perilli, Consagra, Sanfilippo, Maugeri, Guerrini and Attardi). All of this energy was able to produce a propulsive “climate” thanks (…)

De Chirico and the metaphysics of pop

De Chirico resorts to deception, first with paintings from his family childhood and then in his metaphysical canvases, where he always talks about himself. In the very first years of the decade, Picasso notices him when he is barely twenty. In some way, since 1913, he is kept under observation by Guillaume Apollinaire, an equally saturnine and shrewd genius. Thus, the myth of de Chirico was immediately born, with his contradictions and mysteries.

Fabergé’s silver boat sails into dreams

In Tsarist Russia, which competed in glitz and opulence with the great European courts between the Belle Époque and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Peter Carl Fabergé was regarded as one of the greatest goldsmiths and jewellers of his time. His works interpret 18th-century French art through the Russian folk vision, and are influenced, especially in their ornamental motifs, by the severe style of the Empire as well as the floral sinuosity of Art Nouveau.

The flamboyant Parnassus by Enrico Albrizzi

The large fresco applied on canvas (225 x 370 cm) entitled I poeti salgono gloriosi il Parnaso ove si innalza il tempio di Apollo and dated 1765 (on the open book to the left of the De tranquillitate animi) (lot 170, estimate 30,000 – 50,000 euro) is the most famous work by Enrico Albrizzi (Vilminore, 1714 – Bergamo, 1775) and was painted in 1765 to decorate the ceiling at the top of the staircase on the second piano nobile of Count Romili’s (now Marenzi) Palace in Bergamo.

Reunited. Piero della Francesca and the Augustinian Polyptych at the Poldi Pezzoli

Piero della Francesca’s polyptych for the high altar of the old Augustinian…

Reunited. Piero della Francesca and the Augustinian Polyptych at the Poldi Pezzoli

Piero della Francesca’s polyptych for the high altar of the old Augustinian…