Alina Malova

06/09/2026

Saint Hyacinth, Dominican Friar, and the Vision of the Virgin in Kiev, oil on canvas, c. 1600
Tuscan School, circa 1600

The painting depicts Saint Hyacinth Odrowąż (1183–1257), a Polish Dominican friar and one of the leading figures in the early expansion of the Order throughout Central and Eastern Europe, canonised on 17 April 1594 by Pope Clement VIII Aldobrandini.
The episode represented is connected with the tradition surrounding the saint’s mission in Kiev. During the advance of the Tartars, as Hyacinth prepared to carry the Blessed Sacrament to safety, the Virgin appeared to him and urged him not to abandon her image. According to the hagiographical account, the Dominican was then able to flee carrying both the Eucharist and the statue of the Virgin, which miraculously became light enough for him to bear.
The presence of the halo, together with an already fully developed iconography of the saint, suggests that the canvas was painted in the years following his canonisation in 1594, most probably around 1600.
From a stylistic point of view, the work reveals an interesting convergence between Tuscan culture and knowledge of Venetian painting.
The construction of the setting, by contrast, is profoundly Tuscan. The architecture is sober and geometric, articulated by elements in pietra serena, according to a vocabulary characteristic of Florence in the second half of the sixteenth century.
The work can therefore be situated within that transitional phase around 1600, when Florentine painting was beginning to move away from the more abstract formulas of sixteenth-century Mannerism towards a greater naturalism in figures, light and colour.
The canvas has been relined, as part of an earlier conservation treatment.
Attribution hypothesis: with due caution, certain characteristics of the work suggest that the name of Simone Ferri da Poggibonsi may be considered as a possible avenue for further research.
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Oil on canvas, relined
113 × 93 cm.
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#1600

05/09/2026

French Apartment Interior with Large Windows, Red Cabinet and Mimosa, c. 1930
French School.
Oil on canvas.
Apartment interior with a nostalgic atmosphere, probably Parisian, where furniture and objects from different periods create a bright, lived-in setting. In the foreground, a large Chinese vase filled with mimosa stands on a black Napoleon III-style table; to the left, a red drop-front cabinet is accompanied by an Art Nouveau-style lamp.
Paintings on the walls, late 19th-century-style boiserie and large French windows evoke an elegant interior assembled over time. Light, together with shades of pink, orange and yellow, dominates the composition and enhances its intimate character.
On the reverse, the canvas and stretcher bear stamps and numbers consistent with French artists’ materials from the first half of the 20th century.
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81 × 60 cm.
In good condition, with a patina consistent with age.
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#1930

04/09/2026

29/08/2026

Matteo Rosselli (Florence, 1578–1650)
- God the Father Blessing
Florentine School, first half of the 17th century.

Oil on canvas,
59 × 45 cm.

Expertise by Federico Berti.

Superb state of conservation.

An important 17th-century Florentine painting depicting God the Father Blessing, by Matteo Rosselli (Florence, 1578–1650), one of the leading figures of Florentine painting during the first half of the 17th century.
The painting is accompanied by an expertise by art historian Federico Berti, who identifies it as a characteristic work by Matteo Rosselli.

Federico Berti notes that the physiognomic construction and composition are characteristic of Rosselli. A particularly significant comparison can be made with Matteo Rosselli’s Christ the Redeemer in the Princeton University Art Museum (inv. 1977-1), which similarly presents the radiant head and the open, raised right hand.

Berti also draws attention to the distinctive construction of the eyes, with their fleshy, arched eyelids, a characteristic feature found throughout Rosselli’s work.
The painting is also closely related to Rosselli’s celebrated “character heads” (teste di carattere), studies of strongly individualized heads, frequently depicting elderly bearded men.

Another significant comparison is provided by the Saint Evangelist painted by Rosselli around 1623 for the Chapel of San Nicola in the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata in Florence, where a closely related head of an elderly bearded man appears in reverse.

The importance of the composition is further demonstrated by the existence of another version, measuring almost exactly the same (58 × 43 cm), which Federico Berti assigns to the workshop of Matteo Rosselli. The close correspondence in dimensions suggests that it may have been produced using the same cartoon.

Condition: superb state of conservation, as expressly noted in Federico Berti’s expertise.
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Rosselli

28/08/2026

Germain David-Nillet (Paris, 1861–1932) – View of a Village and Mountain Landscape, Signed.

Oil on canvas.
Late 19th – early 20th century.
Signed lower right.

An expansive view of a village dominated by its church tower, with rooftops and houses in the foreground opening onto a broad hilly landscape and, in the distance, a range of snow-covered mountains.

David-Nillet was closely associated with Le Faouët in Morbihan, Brittany, not far from Pont-Aven, one of the principal centres of Post-Impressionist experimentation. His work, however, developed a highly personal interpretation of this artistic climate: rather than luminous colours, he favoured here a darker, earthy palette, while strongly defined graphic lines structure the rooftops, architecture and contours of the landscape. The result is a dense, firmly constructed painting in which colour does not dissolve the forms but instead reinforces their weight and substance.

Germain David-Nillet was born in Paris in 1861 and studied under Léon Lhermitte. He made his Salon debut in 1889 and developed his work around figure painting, scenes of rural life and landscape. An important part of his career was connected with Brittany, particularly Le Faouët, where he stayed and worked extensively. He also devoted himself to urban and architectural views, as demonstrated by his paintings of the cathedrals of Rouen and Reims. His works are now held in several French public collections, including the Musée d’Orsay, the Petit Palais in Paris and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims.

The canvas was originally larger and was subsequently reduced by folding its edges around the present stretcher. The artist’s signature, originally placed along the lower edge of the composition, is therefore now visible on the folded-over edge of the canvas, together with a portion of the painted surface.
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Width: 75cm Height: 65cm
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27/08/2026

Portrait of a Gentleman in Pastel, Empire–Restoration Period, Oval Format, French School, 19th Century.
Pastel on paper depicting a young gentleman shown half-length, wearing a dark double-breasted coat and a white cravat. The portrait is presented in an oval giltwood frame.
The oval format and the composition recall the portrait tradition of the 18th century, retaining its refined elegance while clearly belonging to the early decades of the 19th century. The double-breasted coat, high collar, and carefully tied white cravat are characteristic features of men’s fashion during the Empire period and the early Restoration, supporting a date of circa 1810–1820.
Good overall condition. Slight pastel powdering and a few minor spots consistent with the age of the work.
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Sight size: 26 × 20 cm.
Frame dimensions: 34 × 28 cm.
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22/08/2026

Giorgio Rossi (1892–1963)
Woman with Crossed Hands, circa 1930
Terracotta, unique piece
Height: 78 cm

This sculpture is the work of the Tuscan sculptor Giorgio Rossi, active between Florence and Volterra. The female figure is modeled through a deliberate simplification of form, reflecting the direction taken by Rossi in the 1930s, when he moved away from the fluid lines of Italian Art Nouveau and embraced a language closer to the Novecento (Italian 20th-century art). The solid masses and frontal stance suggest an intentional archaising approach, while the softened facial features introduce a poetic, almost childlike innocence.

The figure no longer derives from naturalistic observation but from an imagined, idealised image, where archaic echoes and modern sensibility coexist. This shift from realism to a timeless synthesis is one of Rossi’s most distinctive traits of the period. The choice of terracotta—deeply rooted in Tuscan tradition, from Etruscan heritage to early Renaissance sculpture—establishes a continuity between the past and his modern reinterpretation.

Provenance: kept within the artist’s family after his death.
Condition: very good.
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21/08/2026

Rostislas Loukine (Belgorod 1904 – Bar-sur-Aube 1988), *L’Ange déchu*, 1952.

Gouache on paper mounted on canvas.
Signed and dated lower left: R. Loukine 1952.
Framed.

A major work by Rostislas Vladimirovich Loukine (Rostislav Vladimirovich Lukin), a Russian painter associated with the artistic émigré community in France and Belgium.

The composition depicts a fallen angel, viewed head-on, with large wings spread wide. In his hands he holds a scroll bearing the inscription “Je suis la connaissance et le savoir” (“I am knowledge and wisdom”). Loukine does not depict the devil according to traditional iconography, but rather a figure that remains majestic and almost sacred, suspended between a celestial nature and his fall.

Born in Belgorod in 1904 into an ancient St. Petersburg noble family, Loukine left Russia after the Revolution and, after traveling through Constantinople and Central Europe, arrived in Paris. There he became immersed in the Russian icon tradition, studying with Nikolaj Globa and Ivan Bilibine, and participated in exhibitions organized by the Parisian society “Icône” in 1929 and 1930. He created fifteen icons for the Russian church on Rue d’Odessa in Paris and an iconostasis for a church in Toulon. In 1934, the Louvre acquired one of his icons of Saint Anthony the Roman.

In 1936, he exhibited in Brussels alongside Nicolas de Staël. He subsequently settled in Belgium and obtained Belgian citizenship in 1950, publishing and illustrating *Mythologie Russe* in 1946.

In his 1952 work *The Fallen Angel*, these diverse elements converge into a personal artistic language: the frontal composition and solemn character derived from iconography are combined with intense color, strong graphic lines, and a fantastical and symbolic imagery. The exceptional size—over two meters—gives the figure a monumental presence.

In 1978, a museum dedicated to Rostislas Loukine was inaugurated in Arsonval. The artist died in Bar-sur-Aube in 1988.
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207 × 137 cm
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#1952 ’Angedéchu

16/08/2026

Charlatan with Snakes in a Roman Square, Bamboccianti, 17th Century.

Oil on canvas.

Roman-Flemish milieu of the Bamboccianti
Rome, mid-17th century

At the centre of the square, a charlatan on horseback displays snakes to the crowd, evoking the world of mountebanks, sellers of remedies and antidotes against poisons who animated Italian cities during the 17th century.

Around him unfolds an unusually rich panorama of street life. Dogs are also present, a recurring feature in the scenes of everyday life painted by Northern European artists active in Italy. Numerous secondary episodes emerge among the architecture and at the edges of the crowd, making the painting particularly rich in details to discover.

The work was formerly attributed to the School of Jacques Callot, an understandable association given its taste for crowded scenes and the multiplicity of popular episodes. Its pictorial culture, however, finds a more convincing context in the genre painting practised in 17th-century Rome by the Bamboccianti and the Northern European artists active in the city.

The painting also has an interesting American provenance. It belonged to William D. Kolle of Brooklyn, a collector of Old Master paintings active during the first half of the 20th century, and its documented history subsequently mentions the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences – Brooklyn Museum. With the documentation currently available, it is not possible to determine the precise nature of this association — whether a loan, deposit, or presence in connection with an exhibition. It nevertheless represents a significant element in the painting’s American collecting history, before its subsequent passage into a private New York collection.

Provenance:
William D. Kolle, Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences – Brooklyn Museum
Private collection, New York

Condition: relined canvas, some abrasions.
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58.4 × 71.4 cm
With frame: 75 × 88.9 cm
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