(Milan 1648–1710)
Tulips, carnations, roses, peonies, daffodils and other flowers, with a torso and basket,
oil on canvas, 140 x 192 cm, framed

Provenance:
Château de Sassy, Orne, France;
art market, France;
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Gianluca Bocchi for endorsing the attribution of the present painting and for his help in cataloguing this lot.

The large canvas presented here is a refined example of the art of the Milanese painter Margherita Volò, better known as Margherita Caffi, the name she adopted after marrying the Cremonese painter Ludovico Caffi. She was the eldest in a family of artists, the children of painter Vincenzo, who was renowned in his time as ’Vincenzino dei fiori’ for his mastery in depicting a wide variety of botanical species. Around 1686, she began adding her family name to her signature. Thus, in her later works, particularly those painted in Milan at the end of the century, one often finds the inscription “MARG.TA CAFFI VICENCINA.”

This painting belongs to a series of medium- and large-sized works that Caffi produced during the 1680s. By this time, she had already absorbed the Venetian landscape models of Elisabetta Marchioni, reworking them with architectural elements influenced by her time in Piacenza between 1677 and 1682. In such large canvases, the artist remained committed to a solid, material botanical description, correct spatial placement, and a sense of gravitational justification. This phase is characterized by a chromatic fantasia in which different types of flowers, rendered with inimitable dashes of colour, seem to float weightlessly in an indefinite space against a dark background. The canvas presented here bears a closer resemblance to the pendant in the Museo Civico at Palazzo Chiericati in Vicenza (inv. nos. A 266-267), dating to the same years of her activity.