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Lot Essay
The simplicity of this still life - and its intimacy - was bold for its day. After the humble beginnings of this new genre, the second half of the seventeenth century and the early eighteenth century were
characterized by the fashion for sumptuous banquet tables strewn with
carpets and precious trophies. This still life possesses a quiet
dignity and warmth that immediately calls to mind the pair of
illusionary Book Shelves by another North Italian painter, Giuseppe Maria Crespi (1665-1747). Both of these still lifes imply a human presence through the sympathetic representation of well-thumbed books and an inkwell standing ready. The unusual horizontal format of the present painting may indicate, in fact, that it was made to be let into a wall to heighten the illusion, just as Crespi's panels were made for the doors of a library cabinet in a music conservatory.
Giovanni Battista Langetti was a Genoese painter who likely received his earliest training at the hands of Gioacchino Assereto, before traveling to Rome and studying with Pietro da Cortona. Langetti's extant paintings, however, suggest that he was far more strongly influenced by the extreme realism and bold chiaroscuro of Ribera and his followers, including Francesco Fracanzano and Luca Giordano. The attribution to Langetti was first proposed by Giuliano Briganti and has subsequently been endorsed by Luigi Salerno. Although this would appear to be the only known independent still life by the artist, a number of securely attributed paintings by him contain still life elements, a fact that supports this attribution. See, for example, the Death of Archimedes, in a private collection, Padua (R. Pallucchini, La Pittura Veneziana del Seicento, Milan, 1981, II, p. 779, fig. 787) and the Death of Cato, in the Palazzo Rosso, Genoa (op. cit., p. 781, fig. 792). Not all scholars, however, have agreed with this attribution. The palette dominated by warm earth tones is, indeed, found in North Italian paintings and the remarkably tangible qualities of the objects depicted recall the seventeenth century. Perhaps this still life is by a later artist who awaits rediscovery - one closer in spirit to such eighteenth century masters as Crespi, Chardin and Meléndez, all of whom revived early baroque qualities in their intimate still lifes.
characterized by the fashion for sumptuous banquet tables strewn with
carpets and precious trophies. This still life possesses a quiet
dignity and warmth that immediately calls to mind the pair of
illusionary Book Shelves by another North Italian painter, Giuseppe Maria Crespi (1665-1747). Both of these still lifes imply a human presence through the sympathetic representation of well-thumbed books and an inkwell standing ready. The unusual horizontal format of the present painting may indicate, in fact, that it was made to be let into a wall to heighten the illusion, just as Crespi's panels were made for the doors of a library cabinet in a music conservatory.
Giovanni Battista Langetti was a Genoese painter who likely received his earliest training at the hands of Gioacchino Assereto, before traveling to Rome and studying with Pietro da Cortona. Langetti's extant paintings, however, suggest that he was far more strongly influenced by the extreme realism and bold chiaroscuro of Ribera and his followers, including Francesco Fracanzano and Luca Giordano. The attribution to Langetti was first proposed by Giuliano Briganti and has subsequently been endorsed by Luigi Salerno. Although this would appear to be the only known independent still life by the artist, a number of securely attributed paintings by him contain still life elements, a fact that supports this attribution. See, for example, the Death of Archimedes, in a private collection, Padua (R. Pallucchini, La Pittura Veneziana del Seicento, Milan, 1981, II, p. 779, fig. 787) and the Death of Cato, in the Palazzo Rosso, Genoa (op. cit., p. 781, fig. 792). Not all scholars, however, have agreed with this attribution. The palette dominated by warm earth tones is, indeed, found in North Italian paintings and the remarkably tangible qualities of the objects depicted recall the seventeenth century. Perhaps this still life is by a later artist who awaits rediscovery - one closer in spirit to such eighteenth century masters as Crespi, Chardin and Meléndez, all of whom revived early baroque qualities in their intimate still lifes.