Carlo Magini

Private collection, France;
With Colnaghi Ltd., London, 2001.

Fano, Edificio L. Rossi, L'anima e le cose: la natura morta nell'Italia pontificia nel XVII e XVIII secolo, July 13 - October 28, 2001, no. 107.

E. Negro, in R. Battistini ed. (et al.), L'anima e le cose: la natura morta nell'Italia pontificia nel XVII e XVIII secolo, exhibition catalogue, Fano, Edificio L. Rossi, July 13 - October 28, 2001, p. 169, cat. no. 107, reproduced in colour, and a detail of the signature in black and white fig. 107a.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting can be hung in its current condition if its varnish were adjusted. The condition is excellent. The retouches are delicate and few and far between. No thinness or weakness to the paint layer can be observed. The canvas has an effective lining.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This seemingly casual assembly of commonplace kitchen objects is a characteristic painting by Carlo Magini, who proudly signed the work on the piece of paper in the foreground. A native of Fano, Magini travelled widely throughout Italy during his career, being recorded in Perugia, Rome, Bologna, Venice, Florence, Pesaro and Urbino. In spite of this, he clearly remained proud of his Marchigian roots as is attested to by his emphatically signing this work "pittore in Fano".

Magini's oeuvre was not seriously examined until the 1950s, when Roberto Longhi and Count Luigi Zauli Naldi published their crucial article identifying a number of signed works by the artist.¹ Since then, Magini has rightly been recognized as one of the leading Italian still-life artists of the 18th century. Along with his Spanish contemporary Luis Meléndez, Magini elevated the art of depicting simple household kitchen objects to a sophistication achieved by few before them. As is the case throughout his corpus, the placement of elements within Magini's compositions appears casual, though it is actually extremely refined, with objects placed carefully in relation to each other so as to emphasize the different textures and play of light on each form. The light in most examples, including that in the present work, is bright enough to clearly delineate each object, but not so intense that any object loses its three-dimensional quality.

In the present work Magini demonstrates these stylistic choices with particular success. The painting is executed with sophisticated economy, and it is through such simplicity that the beauty and careful rendering of each object becomes ever more apparent. The individual elements seen here - a partly-glazed earthenware jug; glass decanter, a bunch of turnips, along with a hanging slab of beef and strips of pork (guanciale) laid out for us to see - each appear as carefully studied presentations, timeless examples in every instance. In discussing his work, Luigi Salerno commented, "In Magini's works one finds a simplicity that achieves an objective rendering of the model with the same detachment of feeling that the camera has toward the image before it. The poetry of his art is entrusted precisely to this extreme simplicity, to this apparent stripping away of all subjective participation."²

A number of the still life elements seen here recur in other works by Magini, suggesting that the artist kept them in his studio and selected objects according to the compositions he arranged. The repertoire of elements which he employs is not extensive, but rather it is the combination of these objects which offered the artist limitless compositional opportunities. An identical bunch of turnips, for example, appears in at least two further works; one now belonging to the Cassa di Risparmio di Fano; and another to the Museo Regionale, Messina.³  The glass decanter, this time with a whole lemon sealing its opening, reappears in a signed painting in a private collection in Düsseldorf.⁴  Similarly, the earthenware jug with a piece of paper stuffed into its opening is a recurrent motif throughout his oeuvre.⁵

1. "Carlo Magini, pittore di nature morte del sec. XVIII", in Paragone, 1954, vol. V, no. 49.
2. Nuovi Studi su la Natura Morta in Italia, 1989, p. 164.
3. P. Zampetti, Carlo Magini, Fano 1990, p. 138, cat. nos. 80 and 109.
4. See R. Battistini, in L'anima e le cose... (under Literature), p. 167, cat. no. 104, reproduced in color.
5. See, for example, Zampetti, op. cit., cat. nos. 64, 110, 112 and 141, all reproduced.