GIOVANNI STANCHI
Rome, 1608-1675
Still life with vegetables, fruits and flowers
oil on canvas, cm 95×131
Previously presented with a general reference to an unknown Italian master active in Rome in the 17th century, this striking still life painting, characterized by extraordinary quality, has been attributed by Mina Gregori to the painter Giovanni Stanchi – the so-called “hand A” in the challenging reconstruction of the Stanchi Family’s workshop in Rome. The scholar dates the painting in the third decade of the 17th century, for its “intense naturalism” and for “particular details of realism which descend directly from Caravaggio”, as discernible in the two splendid pears at the lower right corner of the painting, whose skin “varies in colour” and “shows imperfections and damage caused by worms”.
The artistic language of the Stanchi family, and in particular of Giovanni – the eldest and likely the leader of the workshop – is fully evident here in all its peculiarities: the open melons, the branch of climbing bindweed, the artichokes, the baskets of fruit, and the landscape view in the background.