Mushrooms, mange tout, apples, an artichoke and flowers on a stone ledge

There is little documentary evidence for the life of Simone del Tintore, other than his two marriages in 1652 and 1688 and his death at the age of seventy-eight in 1708. Such sparse information means that virtually nothing is known of his artistic training and early development beyond the fact that he is recorded as frequenting the Accademia of Pietro Paolini in Lucca, in around 1650. This lack of documentary evidence has led some scholars to speculate that he might have travelled outside his native Lucca, and recently it has been hypothesized that his first compositions could have been based on Bernardo Strozzi's still lifes (P. Giusti in La natura morta italiana, Milano, ed. F. Zeri, 1989, II, p. 559).

His activity as a still-life painter is recorded in a number of inventories and his oeuvre has been gradually reconstructed following Professor Mina Gregori's publication of a Still life with mushrooms (45.5 x 75 cm.), with an 18th-century inscription on the reverse recording Simone's name (Florence, Gregori collection; see M. Gregori, Tesori segreti delle case fiorentine, Florence, 1960, p. 34 and also Giusti, op. cit, pp. 559-63, fig. 664). The present lot is comparable with the Gregori picture in terms of format - they are of similar size - and composition.