Master of Still Life Acquavella (active in Rome... Lot 154

Master of Still Life Acquavella (active in Rome in the first half of the 17th century) Still Life with Basket of Fruit and Vanitas The work is under Temporary Historic-Artistic Importation \"This previously unpublished, extraordinary Still Life constitutes ad evidentiam a notable addition to the catalog of the still mysterious Caravaggesque painter whom years ago I was able to describe as 'the most important still life painter since Caravaggio,' traditionally identified as 'Master of Still Life Acquavella' after the name of the owner of one of his magnificent canvases. Some critics (not still life specialists) believe that this anonymous painter may correspond to Bartolomeo Cavarozzi (Viterbo 1587-1625). The quality is very high: the sense of contemplation of the objects, the decisive naturalism as well as the diagonal cut of light on the right certify the belonging of this painting to the strict Caravaggesque sphere, barely softened by a deepening of the shadows, a lightening of the colors and a softening of the material. There are numerous points of contact with the already known works of this master, as evidenced not only by the general structure of the painting (the 'metric scansion' of the objects arranged on the stone plane, including the sprig of medlars on the far right, is the same as in the ex Barberini canvas, recently passed by Robilant and Voena in London) and the homologous (with some variations) already by Colnaghi, but also some details such as the chipping on the stone plane, the type of leaves are almost superimposable. (...) The presence of the Vanitas with a skull resting on a book, flowers and hourglass -in open dialogue with the richness and exuberance of the fruit, a unique case to my knowledge in Italian still life- reiterates and reinforces a typical seventeenth-century symbolic concept related to the meaning of cut flowers and fruit, namely the transience of earthly things (Fugit irreparabile tempus), a concept much beaten also by coeval literature, which is made explicit here in a very evident way.(...) The so-called Master of the Still Life Acquavella is clearly placed in the sphere of the naturalistic still life of the Caravaggesque style, closely related to Marquis Giovanni Battista Crescenzi. Starting in the second decade of the century, in fact, the driving center of Roman still life painting, initially closely linked to the Cavalier d'Arpino's entourage, seems to shift precisely to the circle of Marquis Crescenzi (Rome 1577- Madrid 1635). The latter was an extremely important figure above all as an avant-garde intellectual, a catalyst and perhaps even a proponent of a new taste as well as a patron of artists in that, among other things, according to Baglione's words, he gathered around him in a sort of Academy some of the best young painters of Caravaggesque culture both of figures and still life. Prominent among them were Pietro Paolo Bonzi and Bartolomeo Cavarozzi. In reality we do not know exactly how structured this so-called Academy was, but we do know - according to the words of biographer Giovanni Baglione (1642) - that they also painted 'from the natural,' according to a rather ambiguous term much used in the Caravaggesque sphere. It should be pointed out that in the so-called Accademia del Crescenzi people only 'sometimes' painted from the natural; therefore, it was not the only method used and moreover the various things 'of beauty, and of the curious, which in Rome could be found of fruits, of animals, and of other oddities,' were handed over 'to those young men, who would draw it': the term, if I understand it correctly, therefore confirms that the naturamortists normally used drawings and cartoons.(...) Another protagonist of the evenings of study 'from nature' in the so-called Accademia del Crescenzi was Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, not coincidentally also known as 'Bartolomeo del Crescenzi' a remarkable figure painter of Mannerist formation (he was linked in particular to Cristoforo Roncalli) later veering in a Caravaggio-like direction (at the same time maintaining a classicist component of Raphael-Renaissance style). Some of his figure paintings are complemented by excellent still lifes, given by some critics to a distinct but anonymous personality called the 'Master of Acquavella Still Life,' whose hand is also found in notable stand-alone still lifes of great quality and more 'modern' than the Master of Hartford. In the works that can be traced back to him, the Caravaggesque influence is evident, such as in the remarkable Supper at Emmaus in the Paul Getty Museum, which I was able to show in the successful 1995-96 exhibition. With the small group of works given to this master, we enter the long-standing and still not fully resolved problem of the specialisms that slowly took shape from the sixteenth century onward (we refer here especially to the specific tasks in Raphael's workshop, ba