The Pseudo-Guardi

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The canvases are all unlined and have all lost tension and, as a result, all have cockled. Most of the paintings have some instability of the paint layer along the bottom section where they have been subjected to damp conditions and almost all of them have had the red glazes to the flowers abraded, otherwise they are in a good, original and well preserved state with crisp impastoed paint. They would all improve tonally if their discoloured and degraded varnishes were removed. Offered in original gilt wood frames of varying condition."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This set of six wonderfully extravagant flower still lifes belongs to a group of flower pieces that were previously attributed to Francesco Guardi (1712-1793). Giuseppe Fiocco was the first to try and bracket these paintings together under the attribution to a "Guardi fioristi" in his article "Francesco Guardi pittore di fiori" of 1950 in Arte Veneta.¹ However, a lack of concrete documentation has hindered further academic research on this subject, and therefore paintings belonging to this group are usually described with an attribution to the "Pseudo-Guardi" or "Maestro dei fiori guardeschi". The group of still lifes now attributed to the Pseudo-Guardi appear to be have been painted by more than one hand, but all of them show a clear link to the works of artists such as Gaspare Lopez, Elisabetta Marchioni and Margherita Caffi. They are typical of the elaborate Rococo taste prevalent in Venice during the second half of the eighteenth century.

1. G. Fiocco, "Francesco Guardi pittore di fiori", in Arte Veneta, 1950, vol IV, pp. 76-85.