(Rome 1586–1659)
Apples, grapes, figs, pomegranates and other fruit on a ledge,
oil on canvas, 97 x 131 cm, framed

Provenance:
with Paolo Sapori, Spoleto;
sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 22 May 2018, lot 58;
where acquired by the present owner

Exhibited:
Turin, Fondazione Accorsi, L’incantesimo dei sensi: una collezione di nature morte del Seicento per il Museo Accorsi, 30 November 2005 – 1 May 2006, cat. no. 9

Literature:
L. Salerno, La Natura Morta italiana, 1560–1805, Rome 1984, p. 103, fig. 25.3 (as Maestro prossimo al Verrocchio);
A. Cottino/F. Zeri (eds.), La natura morta in Italia, Milan 1989, vol. II, p. 726, fig. 863 (as Agostino Verrocchio);
A. Cottino, L’Incantesimo dei sensi: Una collezione di nature morte del Seicento per il Museo Accorsi, exhibition catalogue, Turin 2005, pp. 58-59, 104, cat. no. 9 (as Agostino Verrocchio)

The present work was published by Luigi Salerno in 1984 as a work by a master close to Agostino Verrocchio, and then attributed to Verrocchio himself by Alberto Cottino in 1989. In recent decades, this has not been the only case in which canvases by the Roman painter have been attributed to other artists. In fact, the personality of Verrocchio was identified during the occasion of the 1964 exhibition ‘La nature morta italiana’ (shown in Zurich, Rotterdam and Naples), which provided the opportunity to both reconstruct the artist’s life and better define his stylistic peculiarities.

Verrocchio’s activity as a painter of still lifes probably evolved over an extended period, rendering the artist a trait d’union between the first generation of specialists in this field linked to the models of Caravaggio or the Master of Hartford, and Michelangelo Cerquozzi, who some scholars have referred to as a student or a close follower of Verrocchio. His works therefore oscillate between an analytical presentation of individual elements, often placed symmetrically in relation to the central axis, and a proto-baroque decorative taste.

The present still life shows an abundance and rich variety of fruits including figs, pomegranates, and grapes arranged on a stone ledge; their luminous colours, enhanced by a light that accentuates every single shape and texture. Ripe and unblemished fruit is depicted next to decaying fruits that have already been opened with withered leaves.

Despite retaining some archaic formulations, such as the arrangement of volumes and chromatic areas on parallel planes and the depiction of a snail on a fig branch towards the left, the present painting most strongly reflects the painter’s mature period of work. Alberto Cottino dated the Fruit on a stone ledge to after the fourth decade of the seventeenth century, suggesting it might even be from a later date. It is probably one of the very last creations by Verrocchio which was influenced by the Caravaggesque manner, however, at the same time the work gives an insight into Verrochio’s new adoption of the decorative aspects of the Baroque.