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Lot Essay
Panfilo Nuvolone’s still lifes are often composed of the same elements: peaches and grapes arranged on an alzatina or stemmed salver, on a ledge set against a dark background. His masterful description of the soft, slightly bruised skin of the peaches set against the glossy, translucent grapes and metallic alzatina, and the two wasps drawn to the sweet smell of fruit, recall the story of the Greek painter, Zeuxis, whose still life of grapes was said to be so realistic that birds pecked at the painting.
The heightened naturalistic effects employed in Panfilo’s still lifes are absent from his religious paintings and decorative programs, which conform to the prevailing academic Counter-Reformation style, with stiffly posed figures and sculptural draperies. While Panfilo’s religious works take stylistic inspiration from his teacher, Giovanni Battista Trossi and his contemporary Camillo Procaccini, his still lifes are clearly indebted to an early proponent of the genre in Italy, Fede Galizia. Nuolone’s formulaic compositions take inspiration from those by Galizia, who also favored peaches in her paintings (fig. 1). Panfilo’s still lifes resemble hers so closely that they were sometimes confused by contemporary collectors, as evidenced by two 17th-century inventories which mistake the hand of one for the other (see A. Morandotti in F. Zeri, La Natura Morta in Italia, I, Bologna, 2015, p. 226). Another cause for confusion is that only two of Panfilo’s extant still lifes are signed, including a highly comparable composition, dated 1620 (private collection, Milan; ibid., fig. 257).
We are grateful to Alberto Crispo for endorsing the attribution on the basis of photographs and for proposing a date of 1620, in line with that of the aforementioned signed painting in Milan.
The heightened naturalistic effects employed in Panfilo’s still lifes are absent from his religious paintings and decorative programs, which conform to the prevailing academic Counter-Reformation style, with stiffly posed figures and sculptural draperies. While Panfilo’s religious works take stylistic inspiration from his teacher, Giovanni Battista Trossi and his contemporary Camillo Procaccini, his still lifes are clearly indebted to an early proponent of the genre in Italy, Fede Galizia. Nuolone’s formulaic compositions take inspiration from those by Galizia, who also favored peaches in her paintings (fig. 1). Panfilo’s still lifes resemble hers so closely that they were sometimes confused by contemporary collectors, as evidenced by two 17th-century inventories which mistake the hand of one for the other (see A. Morandotti in F. Zeri, La Natura Morta in Italia, I, Bologna, 2015, p. 226). Another cause for confusion is that only two of Panfilo’s extant still lifes are signed, including a highly comparable composition, dated 1620 (private collection, Milan; ibid., fig. 257).
We are grateful to Alberto Crispo for endorsing the attribution on the basis of photographs and for proposing a date of 1620, in line with that of the aforementioned signed painting in Milan.