Lombard School, 17th Century, Still Life With Flowers

Lombard school, 17th century

Still life with flowers

Oil on canvas, cm 52 x 60

With frame, cm 67 x 76

The oil on canvas in question, depicting a floral effusion emerging from a dark background, can be related to stylistic and chromatic traits of the Lombard school of the seventeenth century. The still life was originally born as a naturalistic detail with various symbolic values, often inserted in the verse of some portraits or as a secondary detail in sacred scenes, only later to acquire its autonomy. Italy, and specifically Lombardy, was among the most important production centres that developed between the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century. The work is attributable to the hand of a Lombard artist who has the opportunity to see the studied compositions of artists such as Giuseppe Volò said Vicenzino (Milan, 1662 - documented until 1700), Lombard painter who on the example of Nuzzi, of Mantova and the Flemish culture disseminated by Abraham Brueghel. Margherita Caffi, the daughter of the painter of French origin Vincenzo Volò from whom the above-mentioned nickname probably derives, belonged to the so-called Vicenzini family. Born in Cremona in 1647, Margherita Caffi is best known for her compositions of fruits and flowers. She is admitted to the Accademia di San Luca in Milan, together with her sister and an unidentified Lucrezia Ferraria, from 2 February 1697, according to a document found in 2000 by Alberto Cottino. Among his clients are the archdukes of Tyrol (many of his paintings are still in Austria), the kings of Spain and the grand dukes of Tuscany; in particular his art was very appreciated by Vittoria Della Rovere. The last years of his life were spent in Milan, where he gave birth to a thriving local school of still-life painters.