(Brescia, active in the 17th Century)
Animals and stylised figures,
oil on canvas, 90.5 x 123.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Rome, since circa 1950

The present painting by the Master of the Fertility of the Egg represents a series of caricatured dwarfs and animals, each seemingly involved in a fight. Cats, dogs, cocks, owls, lobsters and other figures are positioned against a dark background: these figures belong to the artist’s rich repertoire and they appear to be tasked and entrusted with revealing the futile absurdity of human behaviour. The image occupies a position somewhere between the grotesque and the absurd, in which caricatured human and animal figures of various kinds frenetically play-out a diverse series of roles.

The works of the Master of the Fertility of the Egg are characterised by compositions devoid of perspective, in which dwarfs and animals playing human roles are layered on separate planes, in scenes that lack any immediately clear narrative, although they probably allude to metaphorical meanings. This, at present, anonymous seventeenth century painter was active in the area around Brescia and his works are often confused with Faustino Bocchi (1659–1742). The artist is now conventionally identified as ‘The Master of the Fertility of the Egg’ after the subject of one of his paintings conserved in the Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin.