JACQUES HUPIN
Documenteted in Rome, 1649 – France, 1680
Still life with lapdog
oil on canvas, cm 97×71
The composition of this painting evidently belongs to the particular genre of still lives which had its leading figure in Francesco Noletti also known as the Maltese, author of splendid works characterized by their great abundance of fine kitchenware presented among opulent rugs and curtains. This formula, which enjoyed considerable success in Rome in the middle of the Sixteenth century, and which was sometimes further enriched by the presence of charming and somewhat spoilt fashionable lapdogs, as in the case of this work, was adopted by a host of followers whose stylistic characters resembled one another quite closely, among whom we may mention Carlo Manieri from Puglia, Gian Domenico Valentini from Lazio, the Roman Antonio Tibaldi and the Frenchman Jacques Hupin.
It is precisely to the latter artist, whose presence in Rome in 1649 is confirmed by documents, that the execution of this canvas has been attributed by Alessandro Nesi, the author of a study on the painting. The scholar observes his “tendency to accentuate the three-dimensionality of the objects in metal with touches of reddish colour which ideally suggest the reflection of the draperies and curtains” giving the work a “particularly warm hue”. According to Nesi this trait, along with other details mentioned by the scholar, make it possible to retrace the work to the French painter rather than to the other colleagues mentioned above, “who mainly use colder hues”.