A wicker basket of pears, grapes and apples, with quinces, celery, other fruits and vegetables, and birds on a stone ledge

The anonymous Caravaggesque still‑life painter known as the Master S.B. was first identified by Giuseppe de Vito in 1990, when he reattributed a still life in the Lodi collection, previously attributed to Luca Forte, and linked it to a pair formerly in the Galleria Canelli, Milan. One of these works bears the inscription 'S.B.P.'—presumably 'P' standing for 'Pinxit' [painted]—and is dated 1655, giving this anonymous master his sobriquet. Much of his reconstructed oeuvre, later expanded by Alberto Cottino, derives from paintings once attributed to the Roman artist Tommaso Salini (1575–1625). The Master S.B.'s compositions typically present fruit and vegetables—such as the lemons, pears, grapes and celery in the present work—carefully arranged on ledges and in baskets, often accompanied by other natural elements, all rendered with striking naturalism and a dramatic interplay of light and shadow (see A. Cottino, 'La natura morta a Roma: il naturalismo caravaggesco', La natura morta Italiana da Caravaggio al Settecento, M. Gregori, ed., exhibition catalogue, Florence, 2003, pp. 122-131).