(Reggio Emilia 1667–1720 Pisa)
Anemones, peaches and a glass bottle on a pewter plate, roses, next to a lute, a basket of eggs and bunches of herbs underneath, a landscape and architecture beyond; and
Anemones, roses, asparagus, lemons, grapes and apples, bread, a flask of wine and ricotta cheese in a wicker basket, a landscape beyond,
oil on canvas, each 65 x 51 cm, framed, a pair (2)

Provenance:
art market, Bologna;
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Francesca Baldassari for confirming the attribution of the present painting and for her help in cataloguing this lot.

In these two pendants, depicting compositions of flowers, fruit and kitchen objects, some anecdotal details stand out, such as the representation of a basket of ricotta cheese or the presence of fanciful architecture in the background inspired by the palaces of the Venetian lagoon. However, the detail of the bunch of asparagus, which was a typical product of the hills between Pistoia and Lucca in the early 18th century, allows us to locate the painting’s provenance in the Tuscan area. The fast and rich brushstrokes found in the present pair suggest a date of execution towards the end of his artistic career, after his successful stay in Florence 1703–1715.
The stylistic features and the repertoire of objects depicted in these canvases allow the pair to be ascribed to the painter from Reggio Emilia, but Tuscan by adoption, Cristoforo Munari. The products of nature present in the pair are similarly found in many of the painter’s so-called ‘kitchens’, praised by the biographer Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri ('Vite de‘ pittori', Firenze circa 1730–1740) as the most convincing genre of the painter, who also painted refined salon paintings, trophies and trompe l’oeil. It is superfluous to list all of Munari’s still lifes in which a similar wine flask, lemons, jugs of water appear (see F. Baldassari, Cristoforo Munari, Milan 1999).

Cristoforo Munari trained in Emilia, but towards the end of the century he moved to Rome and then at the beginning of the 18th century to Tuscany. A skillful still life painter, he began by producing compositions of kitchen utensils, slices of meat, cheese tips, then his style evolved and musical instruments as well as refined Chinese porcelain began to appear in his paintings, becoming almost his signature. After the early death of his main patron, Grand Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici (1713), he moved to Pisa to practice mainly as a restorer.