Felice Fortunato Biggi (c. 1650-after 1700?)

As the inscription on the present picture attests, Biggi was born in Parma. After committing a murder in his native city, however, he moved in 1680 to Verona, where he remained for the rest of his life, gaining a considerable reputation as a painter of flowers. Few of his works have been identified.

The catalogue of the 1957 sale records the present painting as dated '17..' and this has been taken as evidence that the artist lived into the eighteenth century.

Safarik and Bottari, loc. cit., suggest that the putto is the work of the Veronese painter Antonio Balestra (1666-1740)