Lot Essay
We are grateful to Dr. Fred Meijer for confirming the attribution on the basis of images. He considers it likely to date to the first half of the 1620s and compares the composition with two works recorded by Gerhard Bott (G. Bott, Die Stillebenmaler Soreau, Binoit, Codino und Marrell in Hanau und Frankfurt 1600 - 1650, Hanau, 2001, pp. 218 & 220, nos. WV.C. 17 & 23): the former dated 1623; and the latter, from a Milanese private collection, signed and dated 1624. All three works include the same porcelain bowl with a finch eating grapes, a motif that was evidently much favoured by Codino and employed for other compositions from this period. Like many of Codino's works, this was previously given to Pieter Binoit (c.1590-1632), with whom the artist may well have trained in Cologne before his departure for northern Italy in circa 1620, and whose compositions share many of the same motifs.