(Feldkirch 1664–1736 Milan)
The fruit seller,
oil on canvas, 187.5 x 126.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
commissioned by Count Alfonso Vismara, villa di Montesolaro, Como;
and thence by descent to the present owner

Exhibited:
Bergamo, Palazzo della Ragione, Mostra di Fra Galgario e del Settecento in Bergamo, July - September 1955, n. 45;
Paris, Petit Palais, La peinture italienne au XVIII siècle, November 1960 - January 1961, n. 474;
Naples, Palazzo Reale, La natura morta italiana, October - November 1964, n. 224

Literature:
Mostra di Fra Galgario e del Settecento in Bergamo, ed. by F. Mazzini, exhibition catalogue, Milan 1955, p. 41, no. 45;
La peinture italienne au XVIII siècle, exhibition catalogue, Paris 1961, no. 474;
E. Waterhouse, Italian Baroque Painting, London 1962, p. 150 and fig. 127;
C. Volpe, in: La natura morta italiana, exhibition catalogue, Milan 1964, p. 96, no. 224 and tav. 100 b;
O. J. Blazícˇek, Ancora del Todeschini – Cipper, in Arte in Europa. Scritti di Storia dell’Arte in onore di Edoardo Arslan, vol. I, Milan 1966, p. 777;
L. Tognoli, G. F. Cipper, il “Todeschini” e la pittura di genere, Bergamo 1976, p. 153, no. 88 and fig. 101 (with measurements: 200 x 134 cm);
M. S. Proni, Giacomo Francesco Cipper detto il “Todeschini”, Soncino 1994, pp. 100–102, illustrated (with measurements: 192 x 131 cm)

This painting, which is the pendant to lot 110, represents a market scene. In the foreground to the right a young fruit-seller offers her merchandise to a man standing behind her. On the left, the splendid still life illustrates a great variety of vegetables, a basket over-spilling with peaches is held by a boy depicted in shade in the middle ground and behind him, a youth is seen begging. This work is one of the most celebrated compositions by Giacomo Francesco Cipper called ‘Todeschini’, an Austrian painter who was active in Italy from the end of the seventeenth century in Lombardy. During the second decade of the eighteenth century his career was sufficiently established to receive commissions from noble families. It is indeed likely that the present work dates to this period and it was commissioned, along with five other canvases, by count Alfonso Vismara for his villa in Montesolaro near Como, an elegant building from the seventeenth century that had been renovated in the prevailing late Baroque (or barocchetto) taste of the era, which still dominates the surrounding landscape from the hill on which it rises. In addition to the present painting and its pendant lot 110 the cycle included The Sowing Lesson, The Fortune Teller, The School Teacher and The Music Teacher (Private collection).

The present Market Scene is undoubtedly one of the artist’s highest achievements both for its pictorial quality and its great expressive power. The knowledgeable use of light to model the still life elements and to investigate with extreme realism and detailed precision the people that animate the scene, is notable. The light, for example, draws attention to details such as the ring and the earrings that the fruit-seller wears, ennobling her person; her composed posture is distant from the roughness of many countrywomen typically depicted in other works by Cipper. His use of colour is also more luminous compared to his earlier use of earth tones, and his compositional structures are more studied, with still life elements disposed across multiple planes so as to underline the spatial recession, perspectivally framed by the four figures. The four figures are familiar from Cipper’s repertoire of other genre representations, for example the man with the black hat can also be found, dressed identically, in The Fishmonger and a Struggle between Porters from a private collection in Bergamo.

Very little is known of the Austrian painter’s formative years, but from his production we can see strong ties to the paintings of Bernhard Keil, called Monsù Bernardo, a Danish painter who also settled in Italy; most notably they share a similar choice of humble subjects and a similar expressive freedom in the use of a swift and fluid brush stroke. Cipper earned fame for his many genre compositions drawn from everyday life, which frequently alluded to allegorical meanings, thus reflecting a typical trait of the Northern artistic tradition in which ‘Todesco’, as he often signed himself, was deeply influenced by.