Bernardo Strozzi

Possibly the Duke of Mantua, Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga (according to a 1709 inventory by Niccolò Cassana);
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 24 February 1984, lot 42 (as Follower of Andrea Belvedere).

Munich, Bayerische, Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek;
Berlin, Gemäldegalerie Staatliche Museen-Preussicher Kulturbesitz, Italian still life painting from three centuries, The Silvano Lodi Collection, 27 November 1984-27 October 1985 no. 30;
Jerusalem, The Israel Museum of Art, Italian still life painting from The Silvano Lodi collection, June 1994;
Tokyo, Seiji Togo Memorial Museum of Art, Italian still life painting from The Silvano Lodi collection, 28 April-26 May 2001, no. 15; 
Ravensburg, Schloss Achberg, Natura morta italiana: Italienische stilleben aus vier Jahrhunderten, Sammlung Silvano Lodi, 11 April-12 October 2003.

L. Salerno, Natura morta italiana 1560-1805, Rome 1984, pp. 140, 145, cat. no. 35.8;
L. Salerno, Natura morta italiana. La raccolta Silvano Lodi, Florence 1984, pp. 79-82, cat. no. 30;
B. Suida Manning, "Bernardo Strozzi as Painter of Still Life", in Apollo, CXXI, April 1985, pp. 248-52, reproduced fig. 6;
A. Cottino, "Bernardo Strozzi", in F. Zeri (ed.), La natura morta in Italia, vol. I, Milan 1989, pp. 119-21, cat. no. 115;
L. Salerno, Nuovi studi sulla natura morta italiana, Rome 1989, pp. 15 and 18, cat. no. 10;
M. Eidelberg and E.W. Rowlands, "The dispersal of the last Duke of Mantua's paintings", in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6th series, CXXIII, May-June 1994, p. 260, reproduced p. 258;
L. Mortari, Bernardo Strozzi, Rome 1995, p. 176, cat. no. 430;
P. Mould, Sleepers: In search of lost Old Masters, London 1995, pp. 50-54, reproduced figs. 13-15;
C. Manzitti, Bernardo Strozzi, Turin 2013, p. 244, cat. no. 390, reproduced in color plate XVIII.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The work can easily be hung in its current state, although the surface is quite dusty. While there is still some visible weakness in the large vase, the work looks very healthy overall. The restorations are very good. There are retouches to thinness in the face of the figure. Restorations in two vertical lines running about 8 inches from the right edge through her hands suggest that the work was folded around the stretcher here at one point. There are still remnants of an old varnish or dirt layer in the floral still life and background, but this is an attractive patina. Although restorations are present, the condition can be considered respectable.
"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."

Bernardo Strozzi’s impressive still life, first restored to the artist’s corpus by Luigi Salerno in 1984 (see Literature), is almost certainly identifiable as that mentioned in the 1709 inventory, compiled by Niccolo Cassana, of the collection of Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga (1652-1708), the last Gonzaga to hold the title of Duke of Mantua. The painting reemerged at Christie’s, London in 1984 (see Provenance), where it was catalogued as the work of a follower of Andrea Belvedere. By this time, the painting had been overpainted, obscuring the figure, but was cleaned following its sale to reveal the original composition, including its protagonist, the gardener at the right. 

Luisa Mortari did not include this, nor any of Strozzi’s accomplished still lifes, in her initial monograph of 1966, but later published the work in her 1995 volume, alongside a number of other still lifes by the artist. The diaphanous blooms in this painting best compare to those in the artist’s Still Life with Roses, now in a Lugano private collection.¹ Perhaps more compelling though is a comparison to his Market Scene with Two Figures, in the Stanley Moss Collection, Riverdale-on-Hudson.² While neither the present painting nor The Market Scene are conventional still lifes, they demonstrate Strozzi’s natural aptitude and interest for the genre, in addition to that of his better-known figural depictions. The face of the figure in the present painting is characteristic of Strozzi’s hand, and the soft modelling of flesh and round appealing eyes recall those of the female figure in The Market Scene.

As Mortari asserts, rather than a painting from Strozzi’s late phase in Genoa, this still-life is more likely a work from the artist’s Venetian period.³ The painting reprises elements of Pietro Paolo Bonzi’s Woman with Vegetables in the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburgh.⁴  Bonzi’s painting acquired by the Hermitage from the Barbarigo collection in Venice, where it may indeed have been seen by Strozzi during his sojourn in the city from 1630-1644.

1. See L. Mortari under literature, p. 176, cat. no. 428, reproduced.
2. Ibid, p.177, cat. no. 432, plate X, reproduced.
3. Ibid, p.176.
4. S. Vsevolozhskaya, 13^th to 18^th Century Italian Painting From the Hermitage Museum, Leningrad 1981, cat. no. 128.