Six trompe l'oeil letter boards with prints, maps, pamphlets and other printed sheets, affixed to wooden boards with cotton ribbons

Sheets of paper were a favorite subject of trompe l’œil painters. The illusionistic effects of crinkled sheets and the subtle shadows cast by stacks of paper invite the viewer’s touch, recalling the tale of Zeuxis and Parrhasius. In this set of six trompe l’oeil works, Martin Cerulli depicts printed maps of the Duchy of Pomerania and the Baltic Sea, as well as the English Channel, alongside etchings after Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, leaflets and printed pages—perhaps torn from books—shown affixed to boards with colorful cotton tapes. Cerulli likely arranged these objects in his studio, developing his compositions from the readily available prints. The etching after Piazzetta’s painting of San Filippo Neri (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan) appears in two other works, with variations in the accompanying printed sheets, one sold Sotheby’s, Monaco (22 June 1985, lot 18), the other now in the Art Institute of Chicago (inv. no. 1993.248.1654).