(Rome 1696–1738)
Peaches, bunches of grapes, roses, watermelon, and other fruit,
oil on canvas, 70 x 95 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Sotheby’s, London, 7 December 2005, lot 41;
Private European collection

Exhibited:
Paris, Grand Palais, Biennale des Antiquaires, September 2008 (as Bartolomeo Castelli, lo Spadino)

Literature:
V. Damian, Catalogo Biennale des Antiquaires, exhibition catalogue, Paris 2008, pp. 54–57 (as Bartolomeo Castelli, lo Spadino)

We are grateful to Alberto Cottino for confirming the attribution of the present paintings and for his help in cataloguing the present lot.

This is a magnificent still life painting representing roses, bunches of grapes, peaches, a watermelon and other fruit. The constituent parts of the composition are carefully balanced, and its concise handling reveals a deployment of light which highlights the lively colours that are distinctive of this work.

On stylistic grounds this painting can be ascribed to the complex ambit of the Castelli family, specifically to the youngest of these three artists, Bartolomeo, whose body of work was clarified by Gianluca and Ulisse Bocchi (see G. Bocchi, U. Bocchi, Pittori di natura morta a Roma. Artisti italiani 1630–1750, Viadana 2005, pp. 577–659).

The archival research of Geneviève Michel revealed the existence of three painters all belonging to the same Roman family: the Castelli, who were specialised in still life painting (see G. Michel, Notes biographiques sur Giovanni Spadino, in: Colloqui del Sodalizio, s. 11, Rome 1978–80, pp. 19–34). Two were brothers: Bartolomeo (called the Elder) and Giovanni Paolo (called lo Spadino). The latter had a son, Bartolomeo, called the Younger to differentiate him from his uncle who was also called lo Spadino. This moniker derived from the small dagger the father, Giovanni Paolo, was in the habit of including in his compositions; he also signed himself ‘Spadino’ on the cartouches that appear in his paintings in the Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome, and in the Nigro collection, Genoa. His son Bartolomeo also added this moniker from time to time on the back of his canvases. Both Giovanni Paolo and Bartolomeo worked until the end of the 1730s and their works can be distinguished for their compositional choices and style.

The present painting can be compared to a work by the artist conserved in the Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence. Both contain the same repertoire of brightly lit colours, and in both an array of fruits and prickly rose stems over-spill from a wicker basket set on the ground or on a roughly cut stone ledge. A typical feature of Bartolomeo Castelli’s work consists of his use of opposing colours in the rendering of a single fruit: greens or violets juxtaposed with reds, and scattered throughout, touches of white, that make the subject sparkle.