Vincenzo Campi

(Cremona circa 1530/35–1591) and Workshop
A fruit and vegetable seller, surrounded by her wares,
bears monogram lower right: V.C,
oil on canvas, 104 x 147 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Christie’s, Rome, 26 May 1998, lot 305 (as circle of Vincenzo Campi);
Private collection, Piedmont

Exhibited:
Cremona, Museo Civico ‘Ala Ponzone’, Vincenzo Campi. Scene del quotidiano, 2 December 2000 – 18 March 2001, no. 41 (as ‘Vincenzo Campi e aiuti’)

Literature:
F. Paliaga (ed.), Vincenzo Campi. Scene del quotidiano, exhibition catalogue, Cremona 2000, p. 218-219, no. 41 (as ‘Vincenzo Campi e aiuti’)

The present painting is a variant of a work of the same subject which is signed and dated 1580 and was executed by Vincenzo Campi for the banker Hans Fugger as part of the decorative cycle for his dining room at Kirchheim Castle in Bavaria. This series included a further four paintings, three of which represented Fishmongers and another a Poultry-seller (all of which are in a private collection, see B. de Klerck in F. Paliaga 2000, pp. 156-158, in literature). This was one of the most important commissions Vincenzo Campi received over the course of his career and it greatly increased the appeal of this type of picture among private clients.

The present painting was exhibited in Cremona in 2000–2001 as Vincenzo Campi and assistants. The still life passages that occupy the entire foreground with fruits and vegetables that are arranged in many baskets and containers are rendered with exacting attention to natural detail, while each element is drawn out from darkness with thorough skill, and the modelling of volume through effects of light is skilfully achieved. Franco Paliaga (see literature) has suggested that the two figures in the background and the landscape beyond may be by the hand of Luca Cattapane, Campi’s finest pupil.

The collaboration between the master from Cremona and his studio and the reiterated use of compositional formulae deploying only the addition or modification of certain elements within a composition allowed them to satisfy the ever-increasing demands of clients. For example, two other versions with variants are known: one was on the New York art market in 1983 and the other was in a private collection and offered for sale at Sotheby’s, New York, 1 February 2018, lot 61 (see F. Paliaga, Vincenzo Campi, Soncino 1997, pp. 181-182, nos. 37-38). They differ from the present painting by the addition of a man on the left, and in the pose of the background figures, and, moreover, in the case of the painting formerly in Bergamo, on account of the woman in the foreground who rather than peeling an apple, as in the present painting instead offers the spectator a plate with fruits and vegetables.

The triumph of this type of picture was not only due to the extraordinary skill with which the naturalistic elements were illustrated, but also on account of an irreverent and even licentious undercurrent with which Vincenzo Campi was able to imbue his works, which, as in theatrical comedies, targeted rustics and the lowly to solicit humour through a form of comic realism that commanded great success throughout the second half of the sixteenth century, especially in Lombardy.