Lot 287
  • 287

AGOSTINO VERROCCHIO | Still Life of melons, apricots, grapes, and apples

Estimate
80,000 - 120,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Agostino Verrocchio
  • Still Life of melons, apricots, grapes, and apples
  • oil on canvas
  • 19 3/8  by 25 7/8 in.; 49.8 by 65.7 cm. 

Provenance

With Silvano Lodi (as Attributed to Caravaggio);
Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, 6 April 2006, lot 57 (as Follower of Caravaggio); 
Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, 28 January 2009, lot 82 (as Follower of Caravaggio).

Exhibited

Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinokothek; Berlin, Gemäldegalerie Staatliche Museen-Preussicher Kulturbesitz Italian still life painting from three centuries, The Silvano Lodi collection, 27 November 1984 - 27 October 1985, no. 11;
Jerusalem, Israel Museum, Fruits of the brush: 400 years of Italian still-life painting from the collection of Silvano Lodi, June - October 1994; 
Rome, Musei Capitolini, La natura morta al tempo di Caravaggio, 15 December 1995 - 14 April 1996, no. 25 (as Caravaggesque, dated circa 1620);
Tokyo, Seiji Togo Memorial Yasuda Kasai Museum of Art; Niigata City Art Museum; Hokkaido, Hakodate Museum of Art; Toyama Shimin Plaza Art Gallery; Ashikaga Museum; Yamagata Museym of Art; Tokyo, Contemporary Sculpture Center, Italian still life painting: From The Silvano Lodi collection, 28 April 2001 - 6 May 2002, no. 9 (as Follower of Caravaggio); 
Baden-Württemberg, Schloss Achberg, Natura morte italiana: Italienische Stilleben aus vier Jahrhunderten: Sammlung Silvano Lodi, 11 April - 12 October 2003.

Literature

L. Salerno, Italian still life painting from three centuries, The Silvano Lodi collection, exhibition catalogue, Florence 1984, pp. 40-41, cat. no. 11, reproduced;
L. Salerno, La natura morta italiana 1560-1805, Rome 1984, pp. 46-47 and 49, fig. 13.3, reproduced;
F. Zeri, La natura morta in Italia, Milan 1989, p. 665, no. 788, reproduced;
Italian still life painting, from The Silvano Lodi collection, exhibition catalogue, Jerusalem 1994, p. 32;
M. Gregori, "Le botteghe romane e l'accademia di Giovanni Battista Crescenzi," in La natura morta italiana de Caravaggio al Settecento, Milan 2002-2003, p. 36 (as 'formerly attributed to Caravaggio, c. 1593)';
S. Dathe, Natura morte italian: Italienische stilleben aus vier Jahrhunderten, Sammlung Silvano Lodi, exhibition catalogue, Ravensburg 2003, p. 39.

Condition

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 restored and should be hung as is. The canvas has a glue lining which is nicely supporting the paint layer. The artist painted the work on two pieces of canvas, joined horizontally through the upper background. This join is visible, as one would expect. The surface is attractive and the restorations are accurate and conservatively applied. The retouches are visible under ultraviolet light in a few tiny dots along the original canvas join. There are also a few retouched losses in the background, above the melons on the left side. The bulk of the retouches are on the top of the stone shelf on which the still life sits and beneath the grapes on the right, where some of the thin glazes have become weaker. There is still visible weakness to the shadows of the grapes on the table. The conservation is well-applied and the condition is very good.
"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."

Catalogue Note

Little is known of the life of Verrocchio, who was probably working in Rome and Naples during the second quarter of the 17th century.  Mina Gregori and Raffaelo Causa were the first to organize a group of paintings around this talented, albeit mysterious specialist.  His working style places him squarely within the first generation of still life artists who were directly impacted by Caravaggio's groundbreaking, naturalistic approach to the independent still life genre.  Indeed, his commitment to detail, and honest, observational approach to painting demonstrates his absorption of the Caravaggesque influence in his own work.  This still-life is entirely typical of his style, for there is a clear uniformity throughout all of his works.  The same compositional techniques and iconographical motifs recur frequently, for example, the split melon and the delicately rendered modelling on the grapes, both of which are seen here in the present painting.