Grape Vines and Fruit, with Three Wagtails

ca. 1615–18
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 638

Cavarozzi’s acute observational skills capture the intersection between art and the natural sciences, a source of interest at the academy established by his patron, the Roman nobleman Giovanni Battista Crescenzi. A contemporary recorded artists there copying "fruits, animals and other bizarre things." Elsewhere, Cavarozzi incorporated still life into religious subjects, but here he isolated his attention on fruit and birds familiar to Roman gardens. Erudite viewers would have associated his choice of subject with an episode in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, in which the Greek painter Zeuxis depicted grapes so convincingly that birds came down to peck at them.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Grape Vines and Fruit, with Three Wagtails
  • Artist: Bartolomeo Cavarozzi (Italian, Viterbo 1587–1625 Rome)
  • Date: ca. 1615–18
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 40 × 61 3/4 in. (101.6 × 156.8 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Gift of Claire and Giovanni Sarti, in honor of Keith Christiansen, 2016
  • Object Number: 2016.306
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

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