ATTRIBUTED TO PIER FRANCESCO CITTADINI | STILL LIFE OF A VASE OF FLOWERS, MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, TWO FLASKS, A DISH WITH SWEETS AND OTHER OBJECTS ON A TABLE

With Paolo Sapori, Spoleto;

Anonymous sale ("In the Light of Caravaggio: Still lifes from a Private Collection"), New York, Sotheby's, 22 May 2018, lot 48;

There acquired by the present owner.

Turin, Fondazione Accorsi, 'L'incantesimo dei sensi: una collezione di nature morte del Seicento per il Museo Accorsi,' 30 November 2005 - 1 May 2006, no. 18.

A. Cottino, 'L'Incantesimo dei sensi: Una collezione di nature morte del Seicento per il Museo Accorsi,' exhibition catalogue, Turin 2005, pp. 78-79, 110, cat. no. 18, reproduced p. 19. 

This painting was traditionally attributed to Paolo Antonio Barbieri, the brother of Guercino, but an attribution to Pier Francesco Cittadini has been proposed by Cottino (see Literature). Cottino relates the picture to a painting in the Pinacoteca Civica of Cento, 'The Kitchen Worker,' which had also been called Barbieri but was recently re-attributed to Cittadini by Daniele Benati.¹  Cottino dates the present work to Cittadini's mature period, when the artist was living in Rome.

1. See Cottino, under Literature, p. 78, and D. Benati, in 'La natura morta in Emilia e in Romagna,' 2000, p. 45, fig. 11.