Unknown Italian Faces by Unknown Italian Artists

Anonymous Italian Artist
Young Woman from the Campagna
19th century
oil on canvas
National Gallery, Athens

Anonymous Italian Artist
Veiled Nun
ca. 1863
marble
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Anonymous Italian Artist
Portrait of a Nobleman
ca. 1830-40
marble
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Anonymous Venetian Artist
Head of a Man
ca. 1775
drawing
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Anonymous Roman Artist
Portrait of a Cleric
ca. 1660
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anonymous Italian Artist
Portrait of a Young Man
17th century
drawing
Princeton University Art Museum

Anonymous Venetian Artist
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1560
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anonymous Italian Artist
Portrait of a Nobleman
1556
terracotta
Milwaukee Art Museum

Anonymous Italian Artist
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1550
oil on panel
Galleria Nazionale di Parma

Anonymous Florentine Artist
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1540
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anonymous Italian Artist
Three Heads
ca. 1540
drawing
Yale University Art Gallery

Anonymous Milanese Artist
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1530-40
oil on panel
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Anonymous Venetian Artist
Portrait of a Young Man
ca. 1515
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Anonymous Venetian Artist
Portrait Study of a Youth
ca. 1500
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Anonymous Italian Artist
Portrait of a Young Man
1472
oil on panel
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon

Anonymous Florentine Artist
Portrait of a Young Man
ca. 1430-50
tempera on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

 from The Island of Statues

Have I not seen a thousand seasons ebb and flow
The tide of stars? Have I not seen a thousand years
The summers fling their scents? Ah, subtle and slow,
The warmth of life is chilling, and the shadows grow
More dark beneath the poplars, where yon owl
Lies torn and rotting. The fierce kestrel birds
Slew thee, poor sibyl: comrade thou and I;
For ah, our lives were but two starry words
Shouted a moment 'tween the earth and sky.
Oh, death is horrible! and foul, foul, foul!                              

– W.B. Yeats (1885)

Paintings on View in Milan

Anonymous Lombard Artist
Virgin and Child with Saints
(detail of St Sebastian)
ca. 1510
oil on panel
Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, Milan

Girolamo Tessari (Girolamo dal Santo)
Virgin and Child enthroned in a Landscape with Angels and Saints
ca. 1521
oil on panel
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Simone Peterzano
The Deposition
1584
oil on canvas
Chiesa di San Fedele, Milan

Giovanni Battista Crespi (il Cerano)
St Michael Archangel (detail)
ca. 1605-10
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, Milan

Giovanni Stefano Danedi (il Montalto)
Apollo and Marsyas
ca. 1665
oil on panel
Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, Milan

Giacomo Ceruti (il Pitocchetto)
Portrait of a Nun
ca. 1730
oil on canvas
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Johann Heinrich Schmidt
Portrait of singer Isabella Angela Colbran
ca. 1800-1815
oil on canvas
Museo Teatrale alla Scala, Milan

Giovanni Migliara
Venetian Capriccio
ca. 1812-15
oil on canvas
Gallerie di Piazza Scala, Milan

Federico Faruffini
The Gondola of Titian
ca. 1861
oil on canvas
Villa Reale, Milan

Giulio Aristide Sartorio
The Awakening (detail)
ca. 1908
oil on canvas
Gallerie di Piazza Scala, Milan

Giulio Aristide Sartorio
The Awakening (detail)
ca. 1908
oil on canvas
Gallerie di Piazza Scala, Milan

Giulio Aristide Sartorio
The Awakening (detail)
ca. 1908
oil on canvas
Gallerie di Piazza Scala, Milan

Giulio Aristide Sartorio
The Awakening (detail)
ca. 1908
oil on canvas
Gallerie di Piazza Scala, Milan

Giulio Aristide Sartorio
The Awakening (detail)
ca. 1908
oil on canvas
Gallerie di Piazza Scala, Milan

Giulio Aristide Sartorio
The Awakening (detail)
ca. 1908
oil on canvas
Gallerie di Piazza Scala, Milan

Reading Celan in a Subway Station

I can't say whether the other commuters stand arrested

          by this music – the accordion player

near the vendor's hutch – but it comes toward me, world-

          sorrow drafting through the hyaline

shell of myself in thought. Reconstruction-delays,

          the stench of piss and nothing

weather shaped, nothing ocean spun. Steam hammers

          and dynamite tunneled out

a labyrinth, this inner ear where eros doesn't linger.

          Unbeautiful in its volts and watt-hours,

its generations of mice. The wall is dinged and saccharine-

          glazed where he plays in a suit.

I follow his fingers' miniscule work over a column of keys,

          drawing out and in the melody

of that pleated lung. It lifts away from us climbing the stairs

          past horse patrols and jewelry hawks,

past scaffolding, and saplings blown like tonophants,

          past fruit stands, placards and idle

Greyhounds, the corridors of silver buildings, the thunder

          with silver veins – it lifts away

because it seeks the high, lone sun. Admit his music,

          Cause of All, it is handmade.

– Carolina Ebeid (2006)

Bartolomeo Suardi, called Bramantino (ca. 1456-ca. 1530)

Bramantino
Noli me tangere
ca. 1490-95
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco,
Milan

Bramantino
Standing Christ with the Cross
before 1530
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Bramantino
The Lamentation
ca. 1512-15
oil on panel
National Museum of Art of Romania, Bucharest

Bramantino
Study for The Entombment
before 1530
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Bramantino
Adoration of the Magi (detail)
ca. 1500
oil on panel
National Gallery, London

Bramantino
Adoration of the Magi (detail)
ca. 1500
oil on panel
National Gallery, London

Bramantino
Adoration of the Magi
ca. 1500
oil on panel
National Gallery, London

Bramantino
Virgin and Child
ca. 1515-20
oil on panel
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Bramantino
Kneeling Figure
ca. 1490
drawing
(drapery study)
Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin

Bramantino
The Nativity
ca. 1490-92
oil on panel
Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan

Bramantino
Virgin and Child
1508
oil on panel
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Bramantino
Madonna of the Towers
ca. 1520
oil on panel
Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan

Bramantino
The Flight into Egypt
ca. 1515-20
oil on panel
Santuario della Madonna del Sasso,
Orselina, Switzerland

Bramantino
The Crucifixion
ca. 1520
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Bramantino
Story of Baucis and Philemon
ca. 1490-95
oil on panel
Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne

"The artist's real name was Bartolomeo Suardi.  The name Bramantino suggests he was associated with the architect Bramante, but the nature of this relationship is not known.  Bramantino was active in Milan, and recorded in Rome in 1508.  In 1525 he was appointed painter and architect to Francesco Sforza II, ruler of Milan.  Leonardo da Vinci overwhelmingly influenced many local painters in Milan, but it appears that Bramantino was not one of them.  Stylistically his works continue to tradition of pre-Leonardesque Milanese painting of Butinone and Foppa.  Bramantino's work also shows influences from further afield, notably that of Piero della Francesca and of Mantegna."

– from curator's notes at the National Gallery, London

Giuseppe Bossi (1777-1815) - Milanese Neoclassicism

Antonio Canova
Posthumous Portrait Bust of Giuseppe Bossi
1816
plaster
Detroit Institute of Arts

Giuseppe Bossi
Group Portrait of (left to right) Giuseppe Bossi, 
Gaetano Cattaneo, Carlo Porta, and Giuseppe Taverna
1809
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Giuseppe Bossi
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1800-1815
oil on canvas
Collection of Franco Maria Ricci, Fontanellato

Giuseppe Bossi
Portrait of Felice Bellotti
ca. 1810
oil on canvas
Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna, Milan

Giuseppe Bossi
Oedipus at Colonus
ca. 1803-1804
oil on canvas (grisaille)
Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna, Milan

Giuseppe Bossi
Pair of Dancers
ca. 1800
drawing
Graphische Sammlung,
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Giuseppe Bossi after Marcantonio Raimondi after Raphael
Dance of the Cupids
ca. 1800
drawing
Graphische Sammlung, Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Giuseppe Bossi
Diogenes
1797
drawing
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Giuseppe Bossi
Académie
ca. 1800
drawing
Yale University Art Gallery

Giuseppe Bossi
Two Studies of Reclining Venus
before 1815
drawing
British Museum

Giuseppe Bossi
Two Studies of a Prophet
1797
drawing
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Giuseppe Bossi
Sappho with Doves
before 1815
drawing
British Museum

Giuseppe Bossi
Sheet of Figure Studies
before 1815
drawing
British Museum

Giuseppe Bossi
Sheet of Figure Studies
before 1815
drawing
British Museum

Giuseppe Bossi
Study of Figures
for The Apotheosis of Giambattista Bodoni
ca. 1800
drawing
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

"Trained in painting at Milan's academy, Giuseppe Bossi used his education as a starting point for a career that branched out into writing and arts administration.  In Rome between 1785 and 1801, he met writers, scholars, archaeologists, and Neoclassical artists.  He studied ancient and Renaissance art and, to hone his figure drawing skills, drew corpses at a local hospital."

"In 1802 Bossi traveled to Lyon, France, where he met Neoclassical painters such as Jacques-Louis David.  His style acquired a contemporary, sociopolitical slant and later embraced Romanticism, incorporating a more poetic and sensual approach.  Back in Milan, Bossi served as secretary at the academy until 1807.  He developed a major library and founded its art gallery, acquiring important paintings by such artists as Raphael.  He also prevented many works from being smuggled abroad or dispersed."

"Bossi always associated with intellectuals and artists – Antonio Canova was a great friend and admirer – and displayed a range of interests.  After making a replica of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, he released an ambitious and learned publication about the painting in 1810.  A passionate archaeologist and book lover, Bossi also collected drawings, prints, paintings, coins, sculptures, and antiques."

– biographical sketch from the Getty Museum, Los Angeles