Roman School, first quarter of the 17th Century

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 9 July 1999, lot 70 (as Tommaso Salini, called Mao), where acquired by the present owner .

F. Paliaga, 'Sui dipinti di genere con animali vivi attribuiti a Tommaso Salini', in Atti delle giornate di studi sul Caravaggismo e il Naturalismo nella Toscana del Seicento, Pontedera 2009, p. 126, reproduced fig. 6.

This intriguing painting should be bracketed in the corpus of works formerly given to the elusive Tommaso Salini, called Mao. It is now widely considered that these works are the product of several artists rather than a single hand. Quite a wide catalogue for Salini was first proposed by Dr. Vittona Markova and Prof.ssa Mina Gregori in 1989 but more recently attempts have been made by scholars to differentiate the numerous hands, including by Dott. Franco Moro¹ who separates the flower still lifes in the group - which he assigns to Salini - and the more obviously Caravaggesque still lifes which usually include figures often seated with their legs extended - which he considers to be by a group of artists working in Rome. Whoever the artists may have been, their work encapsulates the currents prevalent in Rome in the first quarter of the 17th century: a heightened sense of realism and an increasing interest in the effects of light and shade.

Of this group of pictures formerly given to Salini, the present work stands out for its quality and for the richness of content of the fowl and other elements.


1. See F. Moro, "Tanti maestri un solo nome: Tommaso Salini, Gli inizi a Roma del vaso di fiori", in Studi di Storia dell'Arte, no. 22, April 2012, pp.107-143.