Still life with a spoonbill, a woodcock, and game birds

This still life shows a spoonbill and a woodcock lying before an embankment, surrounded by smaller game, with seashells in the foreground and fruit on a ledge at right. The painting was first ascribed to Jan Weenix when it was in the Diozegh collection, and was later identified as eighteenth-century and from the Central Italian School. Most recently, Giuliano Briganti and Ludovica Trezzani have attributed this work to Pietro Navarra, a still-life painter active in Rome between 1685 and 1695 (from a transparency, written communication, 23 January 1991). Although it has been suggested that Navarra was a pupil of Franz Werner Tamm, his known works show closer stylistic affinities to the still lifes of lo Spadino and Christian Berentz.

Dott. Giuliano Briganti has kindly pointed out that our still life compares closely with the Still life with game and fruit in the Pallavicini Gallery, Rome (written communication, January 1991) (see M. Gregori et al., La nature morta in Italia, Milan, 1989, III, p. 826, fig. 982).