(Bologna active in the fourth quarter of the 17th Century)
Pinks in a vase; and
Carnations in a vase,
oil on paper laid down on canvas, each 110 × 89 cm, unframed, a pair (2)

Provenance:
Private collection, Milan;
art market, Italy;
where acquired by the present owner

Exhibited:
Naples, Palazzo Reale, La Natura morta italiana, October 1964 – March 1965, cat. nos. 222–223 (as Anonymous Lombard painter)

Literature:
C. Volpi (ed.), La natura morta italiana, exibithion catalogue, Naples 1964, p. 95, cat. nos. 222–223 (as Anonymous Lombard painter);
M. Gregori, Nuove schede per la natura morta emiliana, in: Antichità viva, vol. IV, no. 1, 1965, p. 12, illustrated pp. 16–17, figs. 9–10 (as Antonio Mezzadri);
D. Benati, Antonio Mezzadri, in: D. Benati, L. Peruzzi (eds.), La natura morta in Emilia e in Romagna. Pittori, centri di produzione e collezionismo fra XVII e XVIII secolo, Milan 2000, p. 107 (as Antonio Mezzadri);
E. Ghetti, D. Benati (eds.), Massimo Turchi. La collezione, Turin 2019, pp. 108–111, nos. 56–57, illustrated pp. 109–111 (as Antonio Mezzadri)

The present pair of paintings were given to Antonio Mezzadri by Mina Gregori in 1965 who described the works as ‘very poetic’ and distinguished by a ‘dim and almost casual simplicity’ where ‘the ashen atmosphere that veils the palette’ to create ‘an atmosphere of authentic and melancholic intimacy’ (see op. cit. Gregori, 1965).

This pair of oil paintings shows typical characteristics of Mezzadri’s output, including the outdoor vase decorated with a mask, but above all an almost iridescent rendering of the subject amplified by the use of applied paper, which distinguishes the surface of the present paintings. ‘The drawing insistence of archaic taste’, as well as the background characterised by tones closer to brown than black, allow, according to Daniele Benati, these two works to be dated around the 1670s (see op. cit. Benati, 2000).