The Artist: For a biography of Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, see the Catalogue Entry for
Grape Vines and Fruit, with Three Wagtails (
2016.306).
The Picture: Grapes, possibly a quince, an apple, a fig, and pomegranates are shown in a basket, the fig and vine leaves filling out the composition to the edges. All are fruits of late summer and early fall, underscoring that it is intended to be read as a still life taken directly from nature (what, in the critical language of the day, was called
dal naturale) rather than a reconstructed, ideal still life composed of studies made over a period of time without necessarily regarding seasonal uniformity, as was often the case with later still-life painting. In its isolated composition of a basket of fruit on a wood table with a dark background and the light falling from the upper left, there is an obvious analogy with Caravaggio’s only surviving independent still life,
Basket of Fruit (see fig. 1 above) that by 1607 was in the collection of the cardinal archbishop of Milan, Federico Borromeo. Caravaggio’s picture seems to date from the late 1590s and was probably sent to Milan soon after, possibly by the artist’s patron and protector, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte. Of this keystone in the history of still-life painting in Rome, Alberto Cottino has written, “for the first time in the region of the Mediterranean we truly have a still life that becomes protagonist exclusively for its own qualitative and luministic qualities—in a word, its naturalism; a still life in which the fruit has the same monumentality and the same impact as the human figure had in history paintings.”[1] Given the fact that Caravaggio’s picture was probably little known by Roman artists, the actual point of reference for The Met’s painting—a significant work from this first chapter of still-life painting in Rome—is likely to have been the basket of fruit projecting over the edge of the table in the
Supper at Emmaus that Caravaggio painted in 1601 for Ciriaco Mattei (National Gallery, London). In that picture, Caravaggio transformed the practice of still-life painting from an exercise in naturalistic description to a dramatic presentation of the sensual presence of nature’s abundance. The next stage in this process was taken by the author of The Met’s painting, who can be seen as the bridge between Caravaggio and the protagonists of Baroque still-life painting in Rome as represented by Michelangelo Cerquozzi (1602–1660) and Michelangelo Pace del Campidoglio (1625–1669). Their large, theatrically staged pictures often combine fruit with architectural fragments and figures to achieve an incomparably rich effect (fig. 2). They are to Roman Baroque painting what Frans Snyders’s canvases are to Flemish art, and like Snyders, they sometimes collaborated with figurative artists. Caravaggio’s legacy in Rome can be compared to parallel developments in Lombardy by accessing The Met’s still life by Panfilo Nuvolone.
The Attribution: When sold at auction in New York in 2002, The Met’s picture was ascribed to the outstanding anonymous painter known as the Master of the Acquavella Still Life, after a work formerly with a New York dealer and subsequently with the Galleria Lorenzelli, Bergamo. That work first gained prominence when it was exhibited in Naples in 1964.[2] Over the years, as the number of works ascribed to this remarkable artist has increased, various attempts have been made to identify him with a known painter. Among those suggested are the Roman-based follower of Caravaggio, Angelo Caroselli (1585–1652); the Lucchese painter Pietro Paolini (1603–1681); the amateur/collector/promoter of young artists, Marchese Giovanni Battista Crescenzi (1577–1635); and Crescenzi’s protégé, Bartolomeo Cavarozzi. A partial key to a solution came with the recognition that among the group of pictures associated the Master of the Acquavella Still Life is a painting of
John the Baptist in the Wilderness in the sacristy of the Cathedral of Toledo, Spain. As noted in the entry for
Grape Vines and Fruit, with Three Wagtails, the still-life elements in that picture—the vine leaves and lamb—are rendered with meticulous attention to texture and light, and the quality is such that, like another painting, a
Sacrifice of Isaac (private collection), it has sometimes even been ascribed to Caravaggio.[3] Yet the poetics are quite different: elegance and an attention to detailed description and surface effects predominate over the creation of a psychological drama. If, what we have learned during the few decades, eliminates Caroselli and Paolini from consideration, it has also become clear that the figure of John the Baptist in the Toledo picture, together with the Abraham and Issac, are by Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, whose position as a gifted follower of Caravaggio—one whose work follows somewhat the same trajectory as those of Orazio Gentileschi (1563–1639)—has risen considerably. Interestingly enough for this discussion, Cavarozzi has also been recognized as the author of a
Supper at Emmaus (fig. 3) that is directly inspired directly by Caravaggio’s canvas, down to the basket of fruit projecting over the table edge.
Cavarozzi and Giovanni Battista Crescenzi: Sometime before 1617, Cavarozzi joined the household of the Marchese Giovanni Battista Crescenzi, who was knowledgeable in architecture and painting, and established an academy in his palace near the Pantheon where he encouraged the study of objects from nature (he was himself reputed to paint).[4] Importantly, when the marchese accompanied Cardinal Zapata y Cisneros on a diplomatic mission to Madrid in 1617, Cavarozzi went with him, returning to Rome two years later. It was doubtless during this time that he painted both the
Saint John the Baptist and the
Sacrifice of Isaac, of which copies exist in Spain.[5] The question is whether he or possibly Crescenzi painted the vine leaves, whether the picture is a collaboration between the two or whether, in consequence, he or Crescenzi is to be identified as the Master of the Acquavella Still Life. Two factors are worth considering. The first is the sheer quality of the still lifes—clearly the work of a professional artist rather than amateur. Increasingly, Crescenzi seems a promoter of a new, naturalistic style epitomized in the work of Cavarozzi.[6] The second is that Crescenzi settled in Spain, where he advised Philip III on architectural and other artistic matters, whereas most of the pictures in question were painted in Italy, where they exerted an enormous impact. Among the finest is one depicting a violin player behind a table laden with fruits, musical instruments, and two open partbooks (fig. 4)—an elaboration in a fuller, baroque mode of Caravaggio’s celebrated painting,
The Lute Player (The Hermitage, Saint Petersburg). The Met’s still life must be more or less contemporary with this picture. As noted in the entry for
Grape Vines and Fruit, with Three Wagtails, Gianni Papi, the author of the only monograph on the artist, has argued that Cavarozzi was responsible both for the still-life portions and figures in this and other pictures. He further notes that in 1613, a “Bartolomeo” painted a
Table with Fruits that was sold to the Altemps family through Prospero Orsi, a painter/dealer who also played a key role in promoting the early work of Caravaggio. Indeed, at the same time that Orsi sold the work of Bartolomeo [Cavarozzi?] to the Altemps, he sold another still life ascribed to Caravaggio. If—as seems plausible—the Bartolomeo in question was indeed Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, then the artist clearly had an early reputation as a still-life painter and not merely as a figurative artist.
The Met’s
Grape Vines and Fruit, with Three Wagtails has been dated by Papi to ca. 1615–17—that is, before Cavarozzi went to Spain. The
Basket of Fruit seems a more mature work and is likely to date following Cavarozzi’s return from Rome. That said, account should be taken of the different motives of the two pictures. The
Grape Vines and Fruit is conceived as a catalog of varieties of grapes and is thus allied to the emerging science of botany. In this, it aligns itself not only with the intellectual side of Crescenzi’s academy, but also with the tastes of patrons such as Cassiano del Pozzo, who was deeply interested in the natural sciences, was a member of the Accademia dei Lincei, and owned a small painting ascribed by a contemporary inscription to Crescenzi. By contrast to the
Grape Vines and Fruit, the
Basket of Fruit s an independent work: a demonstration of the artist’s skills and intended to appeal to the delectation of the viewer, arousing multiple senses—vision, smell, and taste. What Cavarozzi learned about scientific description of individual specimens is everywhere in evidence, but this knowledge has now been marshaled into orderly, artful arrangement. In addition to the impact of Cavarozzi’s works in Rome, they have also been shown to have been a catalyst for still-life painting in Spain.
Keith Christiansen 2020
[1] Alberto Cottino, “La natura morta caravaggesca a Roma,” in
La Natura morta in Italian, ed. Francesco Porzio, Milan, 1989, p. 671.
[2]
La natura morta Italiana, exh. cat., Palazzo Reale, Naples, 1964.
[3] For the attribution to Caravaggio, see Mina Gregori, “Il Sacrificio d’Isacco: un inedito e considerazioni su una fase savoldesca del Caravaggio,”
Artibus et Historiae, 20 (1989) pp. 99–142. This attribution has, rightly, not gained many supporters.
[4] See Gianni Papi,
Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, Soncino, 2015. For an overview of scholarship on the Crescenzi Academy and the artists who were associated with it, see Alberto Cottino, “L’Accademia del marchese Crescenzi e il ‘caso’ Tommaso Salini,” in
L’Origine della natura morta in Italia: Caravaggio e il Maestro di Hartford, Anna Coliva and Davide Dotti eds., exh. cat., Villa Borghese, Rome, 2016, pp. 145–56. See also Luigi Spezzaferro in
Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 23, 1979.
[5] The figures in these two works bear close comparison with those in a large
Holy Family with Saint Catherine of Alexandria, now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, and was most likely painted when Cavarozzi was in Spain.
[6] We possess only one certain work credibly by Crescenzi: a small picture of a plate of grapes and pears that was in the collection of Cassiano dal Pozzo, who perhaps received it from Crescenzi during his diplomatic mission to Madrid in 1626.
