Flower still life

around 1650, oil on canvas

MARIO NUZZI, CALLED MARIO DEI FIORI (Rome 1603-1673)

Parrot tulips, carnations, morning glory, a daffodil and other flowers in a sculpted urn on a pedestal

oil on canvas 30 x 23 in. (76.2 x 59.1 cm.)

Mario Nuzzi was the first and most famous Roman painter to specialize in flower-pieces and one of only four still life artists included by Leone Pascoli in his collection of artists' biographies. His early apprenticeship is difficult to document, yet a comparison of Mario's pictures with those by Tommaso Salini confirms that Mario was influenced by his art and might have well been trained in his workshop. To the minute observation of various kinds of flowers, Mario added a refined sense of design and an interest in effects of light, still linked to Caravaggio in the use of a dark background. He also responded to the art of the Neapolitan flower painter Paolo Porpora, who was in Rome from the early 1650s, in the service, as was Mario, of Cardinal Flavio Chigi. His mature work, of which the present picture is a fine example, reveals a vivid colour and rigorous sense of reality. The individual flowers are studied with such attention that, using colour and the contrast of light and shade, the artist succeeds in rendering their textures while his composition is naturalistic rather than purely decorative.

Art-Nr: G003

Price upon request