Circle Of Francesco Noletti Known As The Maltese (1611 Ca. -1654) Still Life Ith Fruit, Flower

Circle of Francesco Noletti known as the Maltese (Valletta? 1611 ca. - Rome, 1654)

Still life with fruit, flowers and carpet

Oil on canvas, cm 72 x 96

With frame, cm 95 x 117

The exuberance of the bright colors of the carpet, used as a precious table for the silver plate base of the ordered series of fragrant ripe fruits, It collides with the texture of the draping collected on the right corner of the painting. The meticulousness with which the artist has been able to make the endless succession of points, knots and fringes of the carpet allows to trace its identity back to the school of a pioneer of naturamorphism embellished by this kind of fabrics, that is Francesco Noletti called the Maltese.

Doubts about the identity of Noletti have been dispelled only recently: the seventeenth-century literature had named the artist only as Francesco Maltese, The Commission has adopted a number of amendments to the proposal, including the inclusion of a reference to the place of origin in the name. The next invention on a table by one Francesco Fieravino, created in truth to shed light on a third artist, was then entangled with the data of ancient biographers, The false name of the Maltese. Thanks to the discovery of a celebratory painting by the artist (Valletta, Foundation for International Studies), it has finally been possible to stifle the myth of Fieravino. The Maltese was active mainly in the city of Rome, where he met the keen favor of wealthy collectors of the time. Adhering especially to the ideals of baroque composition, the artist produced an exceptional mass of paintings enriched by carpets, armour, curtains and candied fruits, raising the pomp to its main formal feature. He influenced the future compositions of Giovanni Domenico Valentini, Carlo Manieri and Antonio Tibaldi. To date, no works by Noletti are known that are animated by characters, despite the fact that ancient sources mention several of them within the catalogues of Roman princes: In the inventory of Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna of 1679 there was the presence of two canvases "of perspectives, and figures with golden frames work of Maltese"In the one of Anna Maria Costaguti Vidman, countess, a painting by Noletti devoid of human figures, to which Andrea Sacchi added one.

Almost as a tribute to the ancient destination, many works of the Maltese today embellish private collections; It is possible to recall, however, the two specimens kept at the Muzeum Narodowe w Kielcach, located in the Palace of the Bishops of Krakow, and the still life with a helmet kept at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.

The object is in good condition