Still life 'Vanitas' with carpet, clock, sheet music and skull

Oil on canvas

58 x 72 cm

In frame 77 x 94 cm.

Provenance: Pandolfini, 3 March 2020 (https://www.pandolfini.it/it/asta-0334/scuola-dellitalia-settentrionale-sec-xvii-14.asp)

With the proposed painting, of good quality and with an extremely fascinating subject, we immerse ourselves in the private corner of a scholar: on a table covered with a beautiful carpet embroidered with gold threads, there are books, musical scores with a lute, decorated ceramic crockery and other precious objects, candlesticks, a rich clock and finally a skull; all the objects, arranged in apparent disorder, are well focused by a sharp, analytical light coming from the left, which leaves the background in suggestive semi-darkness.

The atmosphere is silent and contemplative, the presence of man is felt but only alluded to, shaded, impalpable; a strong moral meaning leaks out from the work: the books and musical instruments are symbols of intellectual life, while the clock, the flowers and candleholders, and of course the skull, invite us to meditate on the inexorable passing of time.

Everything on this earth is therefore vain and transitory: this was the ultimate obsession of 17th-century intellectual society. It is precisely from this concept that the entire rich and varied pictorial strand of Vanitas evolved, developed above all in the still life genre, of which the one studied here is certainly an interesting example.

Given the type of composition, the formal choices and the quality of light, our canvas probably belongs to the Roman environment of the 17th century, specifically to an artist close to the painter Antonio Tibaldi (Rome, c. 1635 - documented until 1675), a talented painter epigone of Francesco Fieravino known as the Maltese and therefore an appreciated painter of still lifes similar to those of his master.

Tibaldi worked mainly in the Urbe, where his presence and the notoriety he achieved are testified by the many compositions that have been returned to him in recent times. In them he re-adapted Maltese's pictorial magisterium into a personal, delicate and captious creativity. These canvases, much like ours, were kept in the most important public and private collections, such as those of the Albani, Barberini, Chigi and Colonna families.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The painting is sold complete with an attractive wooden frame and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity and descriptive iconographic card.

We take care of and organise the transport of the purchased works, both for Italy and abroad, through professional and insured carriers.

Please contact us for any information, we will be happy to answer you.

In case of purchase of the work by non-Italian customers, it will be necessary to obtain an export permit, which takes about 10/20 days; our gallery will take care of the whole phase until it is obtained. All costs of this operation are included.

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