A kitchen still life,
oil on canvas, 150.4 x 269.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Christie’s, London, 7 July 1995, lot 96 (as Italian School, 17th century), £90,000

Still lifes showing raw meat and fresh game on a market stand, or presented in a kitchen setting, like in the painting offered here, have a long iconographic tradition in western art and were seen as manifestations of prosperity and the baroque enjoyment of life. Scholars have long disputed the possibility that such scenes also have moral purpose, as it depends on the context in which they have been created. The whole abundance of a baroque palaces kitchen, in which a master and the kitchen maid are preparing a sumptuous banquet, is presented here.

The kitchen interior combines northern elements with stylistic characteristics of Roman still life painting, at that time – ca. 1630 – still dominated by Caravaggism. There remain many unresolved attributions from this period and we are still not able to identify some of the most prominent Roman followers of Caravaggio, such as the Master of the Aquavella Still life or the so-called Pensionante del Saraceni. Some scholars have suggested Pensionante as a very likely candidate for the present painting. Indeed, this attribution to the presumably French ‘lodger’ of the Venetian born Saraceni in Rome would help in explaining some of the multinational stylistic elements in the work, such as the unquestionable French influence, the Bassanesque-Venetian feeling of the kitchen interior and the Caravaggesque still life details. Earlier, the authorship of a Flemish artist active in Genoa, such as had been proposed by Giacomo Legi, was rejected by Anna Orlando, a specialist of Legi and Genoese-Flemish painting, upon first hand inspection. Orlando also referred to the possibility that the painting could be by Pensionante of Saraceni or maybe painted by more than one artist.

The very high quality and the energetic, heavily impasto brushstroke in several areas point to a very confident, accomplished and independent artist. It is therefore all the more remarkable that since its first appearance on the art market in 1995 the painting has eluded a convincing attribution. Besides having been ascribed to the French artistic community in the Vouet circle in Rome, many alternative attributions have been put forward by specialists in the field since then. Until now none of these suggestions have been universally agreed upon, such as Abraham Bloemaert or Pieter van Bouclé in collaboration with Sebastian Bourdon. Once the question of authorship for this interesting painting is solved, it will provide valuable insights in understanding the mutual influences and stylistic developments between Italian and Northern artists in seventeenth century Italy. At present it remains a fascinating, but also mysterious painting, possibly executed by a northern artist or artists in the Post-Caravaggist circle of Pensionante and Michelangelo Cerquozzi.