ATTRIBUTED TO PIER FRANCESCO CITTADINI | Still life of a vase of flowers, musical instruments, two flasks, a dish with sweets and other objects on a table

With Paolo Sapori, Spoleto. 

Turin, Fondazione Accorsi, L'incantesimo dei sensi: una collezione di nature morte del Seicento per il Museo Accorsi, 30 November 2005 - 1 May 2006, no. 18.

A. Cottino, L'Incantesimo dei sensi: Una collezione di nature morte del Seicento per il Museo Accorsi, exhibition catalogue, Turin 2005, pp. 78-79, 110, cat. no. 18, reproduced p. 19. 

The canvas has been relined and the surface is somewhat pressed as a result. Overall the composition still reads quite well and presents a very decorative image. Some small losses can be seen at the extreme lower left and lower right corners. There are some thinnesses to the darks of the background, the tools at lower right and to the lute at center left. Under UV light: there appear to be some very small old retouches to the right side of the vase and to the background area between the vase and the glass flask at right resting on the tazza. Others can be seen on some of the flowers, lute and guitar, mostly in the form of inpainting of craquelure. This painting can be hung as is. Offered in a gilt wood frame.
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This painting was traditionally attributed to Paolo Antonio Barbieri, the brother of Guercino, but an attribution to Pier Francesco Cittadini has been proposed by Cottino (see Literature). Cottino relates the picture to a painting in the Pinacoteca Civica of Cento, The Kitchen Worker, which had also been called Barbieri but was recently re-attributed to Cittadini by Daniele Benati.¹  Cottino dates the present work to Cittadini's mature period, when the artist was living in Rome.

For further works by Cittadini and biographical information on the artist, see lots 54, 56, and 108.

1. See Cottino, under Literature, p. 78, and D. Benati, in La natura morta in Emilia e in Romagna, 2000, p. 45, fig. 11.