Pietro Francesco Cittadini, Still Life with Sweetmeats and Glasses in a L ...

Pietro Francesco Cittadini

1616 Milan - 1681 Bologna

Still Life with Sweetmeats and Glasses in a Landscape

Oil on canvas (relined). 58.5 x 73 cm. Provenance

Private collection, Rome, 1977. – Galleria Paolo Sapori, Spoleto, 1989. Exhibitions

L'incantesimo dei sensi: una collezione di nature morte del Seicento per il Museo Accorsi, Fondazione Accorsi, Turin, 30.11. 2005-1.5.2006, cat. no. 17. Literature

Roli, Renato: Pittura Bolognese 1650-1800. Dal Cignani ai Gandolfi (=Fonti e studi per la storia di Bologna e delle province Emiliane 6), Bologna 1977, p. 219 and 244, illus. 398a. - Colombi Ferretti, Anna: La natura morta a Bologna e in Romagna, in: Carlo Pirovano (ed.): La natura morta in Italia, 2 vols., Milan 1989, vol. 1, illus. p. 441, no. 530. – Benati, Daniele, in: La natura morta in Emilia e in Romagna, 2000, p. 95, p. 91, illus. 51. - Baldassari, Francesca, in: Exhib. cat. „Fasto e rigore. La Nature Morta nell'Italia settentrionale dal XVI al XVIII secolo“, Reggia di Colorno, 20.4.-25.6.2000, ed. by Giovanni Godi, Milan 2000, p. 202, no. 73. - Cottino, Alberto, in: exhib. cat. „L'Incantesimo dei sensi: Una collezione di nature morte del Seicento per il Museo Accorsi“, Turin 2005, p. 76-77, 109-110, cat. no. 17, illus. p. 77.

Pietro Francesco Cittadini, born in Milan, first worked in the studio of Guido Reni in Bologna before travelling to Rome between 1645 and 1650, where he probably specialised in still life painting. His works are characterised by a penchant for luxurious, elegant objects, such as the valuable glasses, crystal decanter, and silver tray in this work. He often places a vivid red curtain as a backdrop for his still lifes, but here it is used as a tablecloth. The work is additionally enlivened by a view into a panoramic southern landscape with an elegant young couple.