Vincenzo Campi

Private collection, Brussels;
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 9 December 1987, lot 12;
With Galleria Previtali, Bergamo, 1987;
From whom purchased by the present collector. 

F. Frangi, La Pittura in Italia. Il Cinquecento, Milan 1988, vol II, p. 665;
A. Morandotti, La Natura Morta in Italia, Milan 1989, vol I, p. 216, reproduced fig. 248;
L. Salerno, Nuovi studi su la natura morta italiana, Rome 1989, p. 20;
F. Paliaga, "Alcune proposte per l'attività di genere di Vincenzo Campi," in Annali: Fondazione di Studi di Storia dell'Arte Roberto Longhi, vol. II, 1989, p. 69, reproduced p. 45b;
M. Gregori, La fruttivendola: Vincentivs Campvs Cremonensis, exhibition catalogue, Bergamo 1989;
M. Gregori, "Note su Vincenzo Campi pittore di naturalia e su alcuni precedenti," in Paragone, vol. 501, 1991, p. 76, note 38;
M. Natale (ed.), Pittura italiana dal '300 - '500, Milan 1991, p. 87;
F. Paliaga, Vincenzo Campi, Soncino 1997, pp. 54-58, 98, 182, cat. no 38, reproduced in color plate XXX.

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. This work is in good condition. The canvas has a good lining, and the surface is attractive. There are restored damages in the tree in the upper right corner. There is one unrestored loss of about 1 ½ inches long near the top of this tree in the upper right. While the color of the background and sky may have oxidized and darkened over time, the extensive still life and figures seem to be healthy. The face of the fruit seller has been abraded, and there are minute retouches to her face and in her chest and neck that address this abrasion. The male figure is in good state, as is the female figure on the far right, although she has a few restorations in her face. The condition is good overall.
"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."

In this large and engaging painting, Vincenzo Campi renders one of his most recognizable and classic subjects: a young fruit and vegetable seller surrounded by her wares.  A variation on the artist’s celebrated Fruttivendola in the Pinacoteca di Brera (fig. 1),¹ the present composition is filled with a new array of produce and is animated with differing characters, most notably the young man at left with an amusingly contorted face and a finger in his ear.  Yet, just like the version in Brera, Campi has anchored this scene with a beautiful female, setting her slightly off center within a foreground teeming with baskets of goods and placing her before a landscape within which two figures are gathering fruit from the branches of a tree that rises along edge of the painting.  Signed and dated 1583, this is a mature work by Vincenzo Campi that exemplifies the types of naturalistic, and sometimes humorous, genre scenes he turned to after the 1570s. Like the Brera example, which is part of a series relating to a group of paintingscommissioned by the Great banking house of Fugger for Schloss Kirchheim around 1580, the present composition serves to highlight the intriguing links between Campi and the treatment of similar subjects by northern artists such as Joachim Beuckelaer.²  Around the mid-sixteenth century, the Flemish Beuckelaer, along with his teacher Pieter Aertsen, established a new tradition of still-life painting with renderings of elaborate displays of food in markets and kitchens.  The impact of this new genre spread throughout Europe and found a stronghold in Lombardy with Vincenzo Campi, who may have had access to Beuckelaer’s works in Cremona. 

The theme found in the present painting was undoubtedly popular among collectors during Campi’s lifetime, for in addition to the present work, the version in Brera, and the series in Schloss Kirchheim, a few other iterations are known by the artist, including one formerly with Colnaghi in London.³

1.  Inv. no. 333, oil on canvas, 145 by 210 cm
2.  The other paintings from the Brera series include Pescivendoli and Pollivendoli, see F. Paliaga, 1997, in Literature, pp. 175-176, cat. nos. 25-26, reproduced plates XXII and XXIII.  For the Kirchheim series, all of which measure around 135 by 220 cm and some of which are dated to 1580 and 1581, see ibid., pp. 177-179, cat. nos. 29-33, reproduced figs. 14-18.
3.  Oil on canvas, 143 by 214 cm.  See Ibid., p. 181, cat. no. 37, reproduced plate XXIX.