Roman School, 17th Century

Grapes, apples, peaches and pomegranates in a basket,
oil on canvas, 50 x 61 cm, framed

The present painting can be compared to works catalogued under the name of the Master of the Acquavella Still-Life, or Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, such as the paintings offered at Dorotheum on the 17th October 2012, lot 574 and 17th April 2013, lot 599.

The Master of the Acquavella Still-Life is named after the Still-life with a Basket of Fruit and a Vase of Flowers formerly with the Acquavella Gallery, New York, and subsequently in the Lorenzetti collection, Bergamo. Bartolomeo Cavarozzi’s formative years were spent in Rome, studying with the Viterbese painter Tarquinio Ligustri and with Giovanni Battista Crescenzi who established an Academy for painters in his Palazzo by the Pantheon. Crescenzi was a nobleman, and the participants in the classes in his academy were inspired by the admiration that Philip Neri had for the smallest objects of God’s creation, for the fruits and flowers that Crescenzi encouraged his students to study. Artists such as Florentines Jacopo da Empoli, Santi di Tito and Cigoli, were trying to achieve a ‘reality’ in painting and this was developed by Caravaggio with his interest in the observation of nature, and the present picture appears to be inspired by Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit painted for Cardinal Federico Borromeo, now in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan.