(active between Lombardy and Liguria at the end of the 17th / beginning of the 18th Century)
Seafood, fish, dead birds, a cut watermelon, peaches, a chest with figs, on a stone ledge, a rocky landscape beyond,
inscribed with an inventory number lower left: ‘151 / 214 / SO’,
oil on canvas, 115 x 150 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection of Field Marshal Johann Matthias Reichsgraf von der Schulenburg (1661–1747), acquired on 20 October 1735, together with three other paintings for 30 sequins, 2 lire;
thence by descent;
Collection of Giovanni Secco Suardo (1798–1873), Lurano;
sale, Christie’s, London, 7 July 2004, lot 78 (as Circle of Giacomo Recco);
Private European collection

Documented:
Inventario Generale della Gallerie di S: Eccellza Felt Marescial Conte Sculembourgh, Venice, 30 May 1738, nos. 149–152 (as ‘Abbate Don Paulo, 4 Quadri con cornici Dorate Rappresentano Uccelli Salvati, Pesci, e Frutti tutto al Naturale con Architettura, alti 6 1/2, lar: 8 1/2, costo 100, stima 600’);
Inventario Generale della Galleria S.E. Maresciallo Co: di Schulemburg, Venice, 30 June 174, nos. 149–152 (as ‘Abbate da Pauolo, Quadri Quatro cornici dorate rapresentano Uccelli Salvatici, Pesci, e Frutti tutto al Naturale con Architectura 3za spne, Taleri 400’);
Inventaire de la Gallerie de Feu S.e. Mgr. Le Feldmareschal Comte de Schulenburg, Berlin, circa 1750, no. 151 (‘L’Abbé Dito Paul, 4, Tableaux, représ. des oiseaux sauvages, des poissons, et des fruits, ce tout au naturel avec architecture’)

Literature:
A. Binion, La Galleria scomparsa del maresciallo von der Schulenburg. Un mecenate nella Venezia del Settecento, Milan 1990, pp. 204, 229, 265, 278;
A. Crispo, Le nature morte dell’“Abate Paolo”: invenzione e imitazione nella pittura di genere in Italia settentrionale tra Sei e Settecento, in: Parma per l’arte. Rivista d’arte e cultura, vol. XI, no. 2, 2005, pp. 74–75, fig. 11 (as Abate Paolo);
M. Gregori, Giacomo Ceruti. Nature morte, exhibition catalogue, Bergamo 2011, p. 20, fig. 9, illustrated p. 19 (as Giovanni Agostino Cassana)

The present painting appears to be a crucial element in the reconstruction of the career of the so-called ‘Abate Paolo’, an important author of still-lives active between Lombardy and Liguria at the interstices of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By 1998 Maria Silvia Proni had assembled a group of still-lives that were referable to the same, anonymous painter, that were characterised by rich displays of game, fish, fruit and vegetables all arranged in heaps on rocky ledges (see M. S. Proni, Giacomo Francesco Cipper detto il Todeschini, in: G. Bocchi, U. Bocchi, Naturaliter. Nuovi contributi alla natura morta in Italia settentrionale e Toscana tra XVII e XVIII secolo, Casalmaggiore 1998, p. 193, note 30).

The author of the present still-life reveals himself to have been influenced by the works of Giacomo da Castello, whose clarity of line and scenic manner of composition he adopted, while also looking to the example of a northern specialist active in Venice: Jan Fyt. In this work the animals and vegetables have seemingly been placed in a rocky cavity for protection from an imminent storm, signalled by the gathering clouds in the distance, they are executed with vivid realism deploying a carefully balanced pallette of cool and warm tonalities.

Abate Paolo’s work exerted a powerful influence on the production of still-lives by Giacomo Ceruti; indeed, we know that in 1735, the year this still-life painting and its three companion pieces were acquired by von der Schulenburg, Ceruti was also in the employ of the field-marshal for whom he painted a canvas representing Fish, langoustine, sea fruits and lemons – this was formerly in the Lodi collection, Campione d’Italia (Gregori 2011, no. 4, p. 68) – and thus he was able to study his elder colleague’s works.

The inscription on the lower left of the painting allows the work’s identification in the inventories of the gallery of Field-Marshal Johann Matthias Reichsgraf von der Schulenburg, the great German commander who lived the final years of his life between Verona and Venice, where he assembled a vast art collection. Von der Schulenburg’s inventory, drawn up in 1750, records four still-lifes as works by ‘Abbé Dito Paul’, acquired on 20 October 1735 for the considerable sum of 34 zecchini and 2 lire.