This large and impressive still life by Bartolommeo Bettera demonstrates the artist's masterly command of perspective and foreshortening whilst balancing a complex arrangement of large objects within a tight composition. Bettera was apprenticed to Evaristo Baschenis (1607-1677) in Bergamo whose style he spent a lifetime successfully imitating, without ever quite reaching the highest standards set by his master but ultimately updating the style to the elaborate, Baroque taste of the late seventeenth-century elite. Bettera's still lifes are characterized by a richer palette and usually include a denser arrangement of objects than those of his master. Bettera’s oeuvre in turn would influence such artists as Cristoforo Munari, Pierfrancesco Cittadino, and Felice Boselli.

There have been many confused attempts in the past to separate the oeuvres of Baschenis and Bettera from each other and it was not until Marco Rosci's catalogue in 1971 that any distinctions between the two became clear.¹ Bettera's oeuvre has, furthermore, been separated from that of the mysterious 'Monogrammist B.B.' who has since been identified as a copyist of Baschenis working after the latter's death, when demand for still lifes of this type reached new heights.

The placement and depiction of each and every object in Bettera’s paintings was carefully considered, and each of his compositions presents a unique variation on a theme. A similar ebony chest, perhaps the same studio prop, is depicted in a painting in a private collection which was also previously attributed to Baschenis.²

We are grateful to Alberto Crispo for confirming the attribution to Bettera on the basis of photographs.

A true connoisseur and one of the great New York collectors of his generation, Alexis Gregory (1936-2020) was a friend and patron to numerous museums and arts organizations. His homes in Paris and New York, where he loved to entertain, were filled with important Renaissance bronzes, 17^th and 18^th century French and Italian paintings of the highest quality, and an impressive collection of French furniture. Gregory was the founder of the Vendome Press and wrote several books on travel; he also served on the International Advisory Board at Sotheby’s as well as the Visiting Committee of Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Upon his death, his important collection of French Paintings was given to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Sotheby's is honored to be offering a number of works from the Estate of Alexis Gregory, sold to benefit the Alexis Gregory Foundation during Masters Week 2021.

1. M. Rosci, Baschenis, Bettera & Co., Milan 1971

2. See M. Abate, under Literature, pp. 246-247, cat. no. 49.