Description

The composition of this canvas is prosperous and varied: in a single composition, all the iconographic choices made by the still life genre of the seventeenth century are represented. There is the architectural whimsy, with its taste for the elements that make Baroque architecture monumental, such as large capitals, pillars, and sinuous volutes; among these marbles stand out rich vases of flowers, luxuriant as in Giacomo Recco’s painting and mediated by the meticulousness of the Flemish tradition. Although the animal theme is absent, the still life of fruit reminds us of the compositions and variety of vegetables depicted by Abraham Breughel, as can be seen from the specific detail of the hollow gourd, bottom right. The landscape is vague, undefined, and deliberately dark, allowing the individual elements to stand out in the composition, which is not heavy and difficult to interpret.