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 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.

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 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.

When she was at the height of her fame in the 1930s, the voluptuous and uninhibited Hollywood star May West loved to say maliciously that “I’ve always had the feeling that a piece of jewellery given as a gift shines much brighter than one you bought yourself”. After almost a century, now as then, a jewel can be a sparkling promise of love that is perpetuated in time. In the moment it is received, it eternalises the happy amazement, the uncontrollable frenzy, the childish enthusiasm to wear it. A feeling that is always perpetuated, as well as the feeling of the donor.

Wannenes, an international Italian auction house, is about to launch a new initiative: the first web live auction in Italy entirely dedicated to Phygital Art, scheduled for 30 May 2024 at 4pm. Living in a time of change and innovation, Wannenes wants to introduce its collectors to a new artistic trend capable of bridging the gap between the tangibility of traditional art and the technological potential of NFT.

A star and sex symbol of international cinema, Lollo was, along with Sophia Loren, the image of Italian beauty in the 1950s and 1960s. Between sumptuous dresses and suits, jewellery and stiletto heels, hats and scarves, elbow-length gloves and plunging necklines, Gina Lollobrigida became the diva everyone wanted to court.

Andrea Brustolon (Belluno, 1662 – 1732) was one of the great protagonists of late Baroque sculpture in the Veneto region between the 17th and 18th centuries. He was a pupil of Filippo Parodi in Venice, who gave him a liveliness and elegance of composition that has always remained in his style, and a memory in his mature phase of the Gothic memories and the presence of other artists, such as the painter and friend Gaspare Diziani.

In the post-war Rome was born a completely original creative project, whose aim is to encourage famous artists to work in the rare field of goldsmith.