(Bergamo 1639–after 1699 Milan?)
Musical Instruments, a Globe, Books, Playing Cards and an Artist’s Palette,
oil on canvas, 94 x 120 cm, framed

Literature:
Natura morta del XVII e XVIII secolo dalle collezioni dell’Accademia Carrara di Bergamo, ed. by D. Dotti, Milan 2011, no. 9, p. 43.

Exhibited:
Natura morta del XVII e XVIII secolo dalle collezioni dell’Accademia Carrara di Bergamo, Orzinuovi, Rocca di San Giorgio 27 August – 9 October 2011 and Sassari, Pinacoteca Mus’a, 29 October 2011 – 8 January 2012, no. 9.

This painting is an important contribution to Bettera’s oeuvre and demonstrates the artistic qualities of this master from Lombardy. Seen from a slightly raised viewpoint, an apparently random selection of objects and musical instruments are spread out in half shade over an oriental carpet. Yet the individual objects are actually ordered according to a precise geometric structure in the form of an “M”, the outer strokes formed by the guitars lying on the diagonal, the inner strokes by the neck of the viola and the lute leaning against the globe.
The focus of the scene is in the foreground, at the point where the bell of the trumpet, the scroll of the violin and the scroll of the viola all meet. Here too lies an important source of light in the picture, finding its counterpart in the globe in the background. In this work Bettera extends Baschenis’ typical iconographic repertoire with several new objects, such as the globe, the box with its chequerboard pattern, the books (including works by Seneca and Cicero) in their sumptuous leather bindings, the sheets of music, the card game and the artist’s palette with brushes showing the colours which the artist has also used to execute the present work. When the individual musical instruments are examined more closely, parallels with a painting by Bettera in the Pinacoteca Antica der Accademia Carrara become clear (Inv. no. 761): the perfectly foreshortened violin in the centre of the painting appears almost to measure the depth of the table and plays homage to Baschenis. The purple brocade curtain with gold embroidery, the carpet with its relief-like geometric pattern and the violin on the right, lying on its front, are leitmotifs which Bettera regularly repeated, some varying slightly in perspective and inclination.

It is the particular direction of light and the colouring, the scenic and theatrical ordering of the composition, and details such as the floor with its chequerboard pattern on the right edge of the picture, that suggests dating the present painting to between 1670-1675.
On the reverse of the painting, on a late 19th century label, is inscribed École italienne, Evaristo Baschenis.