Attributed to Bartolomeo Bimbi

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The canvas is lined and the paint layer is unstable and raised. There is some obvious paint loss, and less obvious restored loss to the background. There are a handful of minor losses to the shells otherwise the painting is in a very good untouched condition. The varnish has significantly degraded and discoloured and removing it would improve the tonality."
"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 beautifully preserved still life appears to be by the same hand as a Still life of shells and a star fish in a Private Collection in Naples which is published by Federico Zeri as being by the Neapolitan painter Paolo Porpora (1617-1673).¹ Several of the same genera of shells are repeated in both paintings and the shells themselves are modelled with a similar delicate use of light effects and rapid, thick brushstrokes. Despite the fact that Zeri has given the Naples painting to Porpora, it seems stylistically very different to other documented still lifes with shells attributed to the artist, such as the painting in the Lodi Collection in Campione d'Italia.²

The handling of the shells in the present painting is also very close to both a Still life of flowers, fruit, shells and china in a Private Collection in Bergamo and a pair of still lifes of shells which were sold Monaco, Christie's, 15 June 1990, lot 57 as "Neapolitan School, 17^th Century".³  These three paintings have more recently been published together by Silva Meloni Trkulja and Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi in their monograph on the Florentine painter Bartolomeo Bimbi, where the treatment of the shells can be compared with the artist's Still life with shells in the Istituto d'Arte in Siena.⁴  Therefore a more convincing argument can perhaps be made for an attribution to Bartolomeo Bimbi.

1. See F. Zeri, La natura morta in Italia, Milan 1989, vol. II, p. 893, cat. no. 1080, reproduced p. 898.
2. Ibid., p. 893, cat. no. 1081, reproduced p. 898.
3. See S. Meloni Trkulja and L. Tongiorgi Tomasi, Bartolomeo Bimbi: Un pittore di piante e animale alla corte dei Medici, exh. cat., Florence 1998, p. 108, cat. no. 46, reproduced.
4. Ibid., p. 114-5, cat. no. 54, reproduced in colour p. 115.