Master of the Acquavella Still Life

Master of the Acquavella Still Life: Still Life with Violin Player

Master of the Acquavella Still Life: Still Life with Fruit and Putto

An Italian Baroque painter who worked in Rome around 1610/1620 is known as the master of the Acquavella still life . The master, who apparently specialized in still lifes , is considered to be an important representative of the “natura morta” of his epoch, a style that used baroque symbolic language to refer to the transience of being, the memento mori .

He received the emergency name of the master of the Acquavella still life after one of his works, a still life with a vase of flowers, fruit and fruits of the field , which was owned by the Acquavella Gallery in New York . Based on analyzes, further still lifes with the same style and technique were gathered around this work and assigned to the master.

style

The master of the Acquavella still lifes painted with an extraordinary love of detail and in all the pictures assigned to him the abundance of fruits and flowers seems to "burst the frame" in the truest words. His work is an example of how the genre of the still life developed in Rome with opulent baroque formal language, different in style from the more reserved depiction of still life with the same “morbid” message of transience that was emerging in the Netherlands at the same time .

identification

The following artists are suggested as possible identities of the master of the Acquavella still life: Luca Forte from Bottari, Angelo Caroselli from Bologna, Giovanni Battista Crescenzi from Rome or Pietro Paolini from Salerno. However, such names remain unclear.

Works (selection)

• Still life with vase of flowers, fruits and fruits of the field
• Still life with violin player (figure by another artist)
• Still life with fruits and putto (figure by another artist)

Many of the works ascribed to the master are privately owned, which is why they are rarely accessible to the public in special exhibitions or auctions of individual works.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cf. A. Cottino: “Le Origini e lo sviluppo della natura morta barocca a Roma”, Natura morta italiana tra Cinquecento e Settecento. In: M. Gregori et al .: Stille Welt Electa 2002, pp. 351–352.
2. ^ Sotheby's New York: Master of the Acquavella Still Life. Image description auction N07759 January 2002, lot 206.

literature

• M. Gregori, Johann Georg Prince of Hohenzollern (ed.): Stille Welt - Italian still life, Arcimboldo, Caravaggio, Strozzi . Electa 2002 (exhibition catalog for the exhibition in the Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich, December 2002 - February 2003 and Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, June 26 - October 12, 2003, p.?.)
• The birth of the baroque . Belser Verlag 2001 (catalog for the exhibitions in London, Royal Academy of Arts (January - April 2001) and in Rome, Palazzo Venezia (May - July 2001)), p.