Still Life Of Flowers In A Landscape

By examining with interest this lively "Still life" (oil painting on oval canvas, 60 x 80 cm without frame and 78 x 88 cm with frame), set in the open air in a park with a small fountain in the left foreground and pine trees in the background. The inventive dynamic is centered on various floral groups, of which the main one is scattered on the ground together with a majolica plate at the foot of a small square base with other flowers on it, while on the right a pot-bellied vase is on a pillar of original shape, from which descends a floral swirl that rejoins at the bottom with other flowers. The scene has a brilliant chromatic texture with a prevalence of blue and a limpid luminosity which constitutes its element of cohesion. 

The stylistic and typological as well as pictorial imprint, together with its exhibition taste in line with a full adherence to the French rocaille - a direct consideration of Monnoyer and his direct following is perceived - allow to establish a location for this pleasant and refined "Still life ”In the Piedmont area of the first half of the eighteenth century, and consequently to identify its author as Anna Caterina Gili (Turin, news from 1729 to 1751). A specialist in the sector who acted in parallel to the better known Michele Rapous, but who deserves to be brought to light, given his certain relevant activity, considering his qualified executions for the Savoy court, which attest to a more ramified personality than his colleague, and from whose confirmation we can in fact go back to his hand for the refined "Still life" taken into consideration here. 

His known works that remain are the three "Flower Decorations" in the Andito of the Oratory, in the Room of the New Archives and in the Toilet of the Queen on the first floor of the Royal Palace of Turin, which were presented at the grandiose Exhibition of Piedmontese Baroque. from 1963 (cat. Painting, Sculpture, Tapestries, p. 118, pl. 309-401), with a qualifying entry by A. Griseri which also recalls the "decorations" of Stupinigi and others in Palazzo Solaro del Borgo, now the Accademia Philharmonic, underlining the skills of the painter "for a taste that introduces elements of Roman culture with professional results informed with great skill, for an attention exercised on the Flemish specimens present at the court". Four of his relevant square “over-doors” within boiseries are in the anteroom of the apartment known as the king of the Palazzina di Stupinigi, with “Flowers and fruit on backgrounds with architecture, statuettes and fountains”. Its overhangs should also be in the former royal Castle of Moncalieri. 

The present "Still life", examined here, constitutes a significant testimony of the talents of this pleasant Turin painter, who was able to satisfy with natural spontaneity the furnishing purposes and the taste of the minor aristocracy revolving around that of the court, enjoying the climate cosmopolitan who established himself in the Savoy capital, thanks to the modern direction exercised by Juvarra who, called to Turin by Vittorio Amedeo II, worked there until 1735, when he was called to the court of Madrid, not only as an architect - he changed the face of the city - but also as entrepreneur calling several emerging masters from all Italian pictorial schools. Gili also had to profitably benefit from these entries, always maintaining a basic stylistic angle gravitating towards contemporary French painting, with particular attention to Monnoyer and his followers, as already mentioned above. 

The paintings and works of art published here are my exclusive property and therefore are always available to be viewed, by appointment, in my exhibition sites located in Sanremo and Brescia.

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Mr. Riccardo Moneghini 
Art Historian