Felice Fortunato Biggi, known as Felice de 'Fiori (Parma 1650 - Verona 1700 ca.), cercle of

Flower Still Life Old Master 17th century Italy Paint Oil on canvas Quality Art

1670-1720

Aniello Ascione (Naples, news from 1680 to 1708) Still life with festoon of flowers and fruit Oil painting on canvas, 89 x 117 cm in frame cm 109 x 137 With expertise and attributive study by Prof. Stefano Causa (University of Naples) '' This fruit composition with a festoon of flowers belongs to Aniello Ascione's brush and is a prominent addition to the final game of the Neapolitan still life - the most baroque and decorative one can imagine. The naturalistic work, still Caravaggesque, of the specialists of the early sixteenth century, from Luca Forte to Porpora, now seems a distant memory. The name of Ascione also comes from the comparison with the still life signed by the Civic Museum of Castello Ursini in Catania, against which the painting in question qualifies as a sixteenth version. On the other hand, it is not uncommon for easily repeatable patterns to recur in the workshops of still life painters. The melon on the right, the rush of flowers and, in the background, the profile of a column or a fountain. We could compare them to the normalized formal types used by great southern...

Pieter Casteels III (Antwerp 1684 - 1749 Richmond) circle Floral still life Signed lower left, on the stone: P Casteels About 1730 Oil painting on...

Master of the Grotesque Vase (active in Rome and Naples in the first quarter of the 17th century) Still life of flowers in a classic vase oil on canvas 66 x 51 cm, In frame cm. 82 x...

Roman school of the early 18th century Luigi Garzi (Pistoia 1638– Rome1721) attributed Still life of fruit supported by three angels Oil on oval canvas 116 x 91 cm., Framed 140 x 119 cm. Authentication on a photograph by Prof Giancarlo Sestieri, who attributes the work to the sphere of Luigi Garzi This magnificent canvas, depicting a sumptuous composition of fruit supported by three prosperous winged cherubs, from which comes a parchment bearing the Latin expression "Amor est vitae essentia", is to be placed in the production of a Roman author active between the second half of XVII century and the first of the following century. The iconography that sees represented cherubs with fruit or flowers is frequent in the Baroque period, especially in the Roman area, starting from the 1600s, with that particular depictional tendency aimed at illusionistic and frivolous images, to a type of paintings or frescoes of strong value decorative, intended for the private context and depicting jubilation of cherubs, angels or cherubs, and of which our canvas represents a perfect example. We can recall, among the most illustrious iconographic precedents, the elegant mirrors painted by Mario Nuzzi and Carlo Maratta that adorn the hall of Palazzo Colonna in Rome, and again the canvas preserved in the Rouen museum and the similar ones in Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia, with the collaboration for the figurative parts of Filippo Lauri. The commercial and furnishing success of similar works is also testified by authors such as Guglielmo Cortese known as Borgognone (1628 - 1679), Franz Werner Von Tamm (1658 - 1724), Giovan Battista Gaulli (1639 - 1709), Giovanni Paolo Castelli known as Spadino (Rome 1650 - 1740) and the aforementioned Carlo Maratta (1625 - 1713) The work, studied by Giancarlo Sestieri, was brought closer to the sphere of the eclectic Pistoian painter Luigi Garzi, one of the protagonists of Roman painting in the decades of transition between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In our painting we can find the typical elements of his painting: the soft and delicately chiaroscuro light, the sculptural classicism of the figures as well as the stupendous luministic and chromatic effects. Luigi Garzi's training and artistic activity took place in the Eternal City and he was in effect a Roman artist. He moved to Rome from Pistoia, his hometown at a very young age, and joined the atelier of Andrea Sacchi, who directed his studies towards classicism, comparing himself with the works of Raphael, Domenichino and Nicolas Poussin, but also with the Emilian one. , with particular attention to the school of Guido Reni. But the Emilian examples were undoubtedly preceded, particularly by Giovani Lanfranco, who modeled his taste and style, together with a modulated cortonism, while those pre-eighteenth-century sensibilities are due to the lesson of Carlo Maratta. However, there is no doubt that the painter oriented his personality without ever bowing to imitation, reaching a refined elegance and autonomy of language, as the canvas in question clearly demonstrates in which the different influences find a refined amalgamation in perfect harmony with the baroque evolution between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, indicating a dating to its earliest maturity. These attitudes led the painter to obtain awards and prestigious commissions as soon as possible, such as the frescoes of Palazzo Borghese...

Still life in a landscape with fruit and game Work of the late Roman Baroque of the late seventeenth / eaarly eighteenth century attributable to Giovanni Paolo Castelli, known as Spadino (Rome, 1659 - 1730) oil on canvas 62 x 76 cm., Framed 90 x 109 cm. An open-air setting, with a hilly landscape gash that opens into the distance in the central part, surrounds our beautiful canvas, which showcases a rich selection of game and fruit, arranged in the foreground near the point of view of the observer, occupying a large part of the visual field with their bright and festive colors. The style and quality of the work, like the pictorial technique of this still life, characterized by subtle luminous vibrations and a lively chroma, make it attributable to the Roman Giovanni Paolo Castelli, known as Lo Spadino (Rome, 1659 - 1730), one of the most important specialists of this pictorial genre of late Baroque Rome, which had a very successful career between the 17th and 18th centuries. Analyzing the rich and heterogeneous catalog of the Roman master, in fact, our canvas can be included among his rare works which, alongside a selection of fruit - among which stand out large melons, ripe figs, dark grapes and plums - we see a game advert, presumably as requested by a patron who loves hunting. Next to various birds, spoils of a profitable hunting trip, there is also a small green woodpecker, with the characteristic red spot on the head, and a nice rodent that terminates from behind the trunk. The painter abandons himself to a skilful and brilliant chromatic texture of the surfaces, through a pictorial material rendered with exceptional vibration in its luminous and 'tactile' body, fully respecting the taste of the full Roman Baroque. The quality appears excellent, distinguished by a skilful and brilliant chromatic texture of the surfaces, which appear almost vibrant thanks to a skilful drafting of the pictorial material. Inevitable and evident are the Flemish suggestions, which had influenced the Roman Baroque still life, in particular the work of Abraham Brueghel...

Flower garland with a portrait of the Virgin Francesco Trevisani (Capodistria 1656 - Rome 1746) and Niccolò Stanchi (Rome 1623 - 1690), attributable Oil on canvas 66 x 49 cm. - In f...

This unpublished composition is a recent addition to Adeodato Zuccati’s catalog. The study of this painting by Gianluca Bocchi, an Italian art historian specializing in Italian still lives, is available upon request. This composition is typical of the productions of Adeodato Zuccati, an Emilian painter...

This painting is typical of the art of Jan Weenix, one of the best still life and hunting painters of the Dutch Golden Age. In a cleverly disordered manner, he depicts ten studies of dogs (mainly spaniels and greyhounds) and the sumptuous study of a stole. These studies were probably intended to be used as a source of inspiration and adapted in the painter's compositions, as we will see in a close examination of some of his paintings. 1. Jan Weenix, a prolific still life painter Jan Weenix was born into a family of artists: his father Jan Baptist Weenix (1621 - 1659) was also a landscape and still life painter and his mother Josyntgen d'Hondecoeter was the daughter of the animal painter Gillis d'Hondecoeter (1575 - 1638). His father trained him together with his cousin Melchior d'Hondecoeter (1636 - 1695). In 1664 Jan Weenix became a member of the St. Luke's Guild in Utrecht, to which he belonged until 1668. In 1679 he married Pieternella Backer with whom he had 13 children. His compositions, often related to hunting (still lifes, portraits of hunters) were very successful, ensuring him a certain financial ease. Jan Weenix also painted large-scale decorations: while staying in Düsseldorf with the Prince-Elector of the Palatinate between 1702 and 1712, he executed twelve gigantic compositions combining landscapes, hunting scenes and still life for the Bensberg hunting lodge. 2. Description of the artwork The painting displays a great apparent disorder that hides a rigorous organisation in four quarters. It presents ten studies of hunting dogs and one study of a stole. The studies of the stole and of two of the dogs (the greyhound in the lower right and the spaniel in the upper right quarter) are quite elaborate, whereas those of the other dogs are sketchier. As an example, the dog in the upper right corner is only partially painted. The dogs' coats, of different colours - brown, sandy, grey or black - stand out against the warm brown background and are illuminated by the shine of their white hair. This white colour, probably executed with ceruse white, illuminates the study of a stole which stands out in the lower left-hand corner while the red colour of its lining warms up the composition. The purpose of this stole is enigmatic: we think it is probably a neckband, but it could also be the back of the turban of an oriental character. To the right of this stole is the outline of a long animal leg, perhaps a horse leg. Similar studies are rare in the work of Jan Weenix, but the Rijksmuseum recently acquired the study of a seated monkey. This study, executed in the same brown chromatic range, is much more accomplished. It has been reused with minimal change in many compositions. It is likely that Jan Weenix had less frequently a monkey at his disposal, and that he therefore depicted it in great details, whereas he could probably easily find dogs as models. Note the characteristic white dot in the corner of each pupil that brings them to life! 3. Related artworks We have tried to relate the various dogs in this study to the countless dogs that appear in the paintings of Jan Weenix, as listed in the catalogue 'Father and Son - Weenix' compiled by Anke van Wagenberg- Ter Hoeven in 2018. A first example is the painting entitled "The Prodigal Son on the Steps of a Palace" (catalogue number 7 - 8th photo in the gallery). In the lower left-hand corner of the composition, a spaniel is barking at a peacock perched on a stone. This spaniel, which is depicted in a similar manner in the "Portrait of a Young Man with a Falcon" in the Bremen Kunsthalle (catalogue number 76), is reminiscent of the spaniel in the upper left-hand quarter of our study (although the latter is slenderer and the direction of its head differs). We also find, in a slightly different pose, the seated greyhound that is at the top of our painting in the composition representing "A Swan, a Stag, a Hare and Birds presented by two hunting Valets" (catalogue number 130 - last photo in the gallery). The sketch of this greyhound in our study is unfinished: the painter only painted the grey undercoat and the white parts of the coat, without completing the sandy coat which appears in the final painting. We can see from these various examples that our study was probably more a repertoire of forms than a model for a specific composition. The painter probably used it for inspiration before adapting each dog study...

Fred G. Meier, art historian, confirmed with the following comment, after a photographic examination of the work, that it belongs to the studio of Georg Flegel...

This painting is reproduced in the reference book on Roman still life "Pittori di nature morta a Roma - artisti italiani 1630 -1750" by Gianluca and Ulisse Bocchi - Arti Grafiche Cas...

Juan Sánchez Cotán (1560 - 1627) was one of the most important still life painters in Spain and beyond. He developed a certain type of still life with a ...

Giovanni Paolo Castelli called Spadino (Rome 1659 - Rome 1730) Still life Oil on canvas, cm. 81x31 - with frame cm. 92x41 Shaped and gilded wo...