Notice de l'oeuvre :
Described in the 18th century by the Florentine biographer Gaburri as an excellent still-life painter, Cristoforo Munari was gradually forgotten. The monographic exhibition of 1964 at the Galleria Nazionale di Parma and more recently the one organized at Reggio, his hometown, in 1999, have allowed the public to rediscover his work and to become aware of the originality of an artist considered to be one of the glories of his time.
The sources are silent about Cristoforo Munari’s training. Originally from Emilia, he was very probably influenced by the work of Paolo Antonio Barbieri and by Evaristo Baschenis from Bergamo, whose fame spread well beyond the confines of his native city (ill. 1).
The painter received commissions from Rinaldo d’Este. However, his complicated relations with the duke – as seem to be confirmed by a series of letters sent by the artist to his patron in order to receive payment for two paintings that had been finished several years beforehand – encouraged Munari to leave his home region to settle in the papal city.
During his time in Rome, between 1695 and 1707, Munari worked for Cosmo III, for Cardinal Giuseppe Renato Imperiali and for Cardinal Francesco Maria de Medici. The last of these commissioned paintings for the Villa Lampeggi. Munari developed a style that was more and more refined at this time, developed from contact with painters such as Christian Berentz, Giovanni Paolo Castelli and Pietro Navarra. Luxurious motifs, such as Chinese porcelain, Delftware and ladyfingers, reserved for rich dining rooms, complement his usual repertoire of objects including musical instruments, precious glassware and varied fruit – mainly apples, oranges, melons and ripped out watermelons (ill. 2).
Spurred on by the Grand Prince Ferdinando de Medici (1663- 1713), an important collector of still-lifes, Cristoforo Munari moved to Florence and made several large trompe-l’œil compositions, most of which are still in the Florentine galleries. The support of the Grand Prince reinforced his fame and allowed him to win the favour of the most prestigious Tuscan families. In 1714, Munari settled in Pisa to restore the cupola of the Duomo and remained there until his death in 1720.
Our painting can be dated around 1710, during the artist’s Florentine period. Munari, who was at the peak of his abilities, developed elegant still-lifes that could seduce aristocratic clients. Claudia Salvi2 compares our composition to a series of paintings made during this period: the Still-life with Cauliflower, Cut of Meat, Knife, Basket of Apples, Lemons from a private collection (ill. 3), the Still-life with Wine Bottles, Wicker Baskets, Meat, Dead Duck, Cauliflower, Fruits, Copper Objects (ill. 4) probably painted for a member of the Medici family and the Still-life with Stoneware and Ceramic Pots, Platters, Glass, Bottle, Knife, Basket, Mushrooms, Cauliflower, Dead Birds and Rodents in the Weber collection (ill. 5). Certain favourite motifs of his Florentine paintings can be found in our composition, in particular the cauliflower and citrus fruits. Munari, who made kitchen interiors (copper objects, baskets, cuts of meat, knives, fruit and vegetables) a speciality, favoured rustic or rural atmospheres treated with great delicacy. He succeeded in communicating his emotion before the beauty of the simplest everyday objects. This love of reality, characteristic of Northern Italy, is however tempered by the poetry that emerges from his compositions. As A. G. Quintavalle claims, “the painter thus avoids the truculent language of Boselli or the refined but cold and prim expression of Benedetti or Berentz”3. Claudia Salvi has pointed out a connection with the Master S.B., active in Rome during the middle of the 17th century, in whose works the same repertoire of objects can be found, treated with undeniable naturalistic vigour.
In our monumental painting, the artist offers a majestic accumulation of items. The baroque flavour of such a majestic accumulation of objects can only 69 be emphasized, a motley jumble that mixes game (a hare), fowl (a bittern, pigeons, ducks, bee- eaters), flowers (a basket of roses), fruit (a citron and oranges), vegetables (a bunch of asparagus, a cauliflower, and artichokes), without any hierarchy and placed on the ground in front of a stone bowl that stands against a background comprising a nocturnal landscape. The painter has chosen a dense, almost elusive, composition: virtuoso in the genre of still-life, he has thus brilliantly created a dialogue between these products of nature that interweave by forming an undulating pyramidal composition.
The spectacular appearance of Munari’s still-lifes, often saturated with varied and clustered objects is built on the richness and originality of the arrangements created. The elements that seem to superimpose without any apparent order are in fact methodically arranged in relation to each other, so as to create successful contrasts of colour and texture. The painter has invented dynamic rhythms in which dissymmetry plays a seductive part and where visual conflicts, discordant scales, and clashes of colour are arranged.
The artist shows great sensitivity in the rendering of light and shadow. A luminous halo coming from the upper left corner of the composition gives the work a striking dramatic effect. The opulence and sparkle of the group of powerfully illuminated objects contrasts with the barrenness of the dark landscape, which is quite inhospitable, and the stony hardness of the vase in the background.
Before taking a sweeping view of this natural company, the viewer takes the time to examine each element shown larger than life and to appreciate its form and texture. The eye is attracted to the centre by a bittern, a small wader with its wings spread out, hanging from its feet. Its immaculate white plumage echoes the bright and fluffy coat of the hare below.
The painter has taken particular care describing the different materials. He has succeeded in rendering the flavour and ruggedness of the fruit, the thickness and softness of the fur, the smooth and bright texture of the plumage, the freshness of the cabbage leaves on which we glimpse a few minuscule drops of water with their illusionist rendering. The decorative elegance of the large leaves in blue-green shades, the treatment of the irregular and glittering skin of the citrus fruit, the creamy character of the paint, can be interpreted as true signatures of the artist. Our painting therefore constitutes a new entry, a magisterial one, in the corpus of Cristoforo Munari.4
Unfortunately, there are no documents that could allow the provenance of our painting to be retraced. However, the hypothesis of a commission for Ferdinando de Medici, who had great respect for Munari, seems entirely plausible. His aura and pronounced love of the arts allowed him to become, at the end of the 17th century and during the first decade of the 18th, the most enlightened patron and collector in Italy. He spent large sums on his ambitious projects to renovate his apartments at the Palazzo Pitti and to decorate his favourite country villas, Poggio a Caiano and Pratolino.5 In these holiday resorts, he devoted himself to one of his favourite activities, hunting, a theme celebrated in our painting.
Our still-life pays tribute to the great love of the Medici for botany and depictions of nature. Indeed, at that time the Medici gardens aroused the curiosity and admiration of all the courts of Europe. The imposing citron and oranges in our painting could refer to the impressive collection of citrus fruits owned by the Medici, of which the 116 varieties were immortalized by Bartolomeo Bimbi (ill. 7).
The large stone urn is inspired by the famous Medici vase, now at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. This large neo-Attic marble krater
dating to the first century B.C. was the source of countless copies and reinterpretations from the Renaissance. On our vase, the legs of three Greek warriors sculpted in bas-relief can be glimpsed, a detail that is also found on the mythological frieze that runs all around the original vase (ill. 8). The large bowl in our painting seems therefore to suggest a prestigious provenance for our still-life, doubtless destined to adorn a Medici residence.
Claudia Salvi has noted rightly that our canvas could constitute an Italian pendant to the Grand Prince’s northern still-lifes, as he owned a large number of paintings by Willem Van Aelst and Nicola Van Houbraken. A work by Van Houbraken, now in storage at the Palazzo Pitti, depicting Game, Vegetables, a Large Cabbage, Citrus Fruit, Dead birds, a flask of wine and Oysters offers a perfect counterpoint to our still-life: the same type of composition combining rustic objects arranged in a disorganized manner but treated in a less lively and contrasted range of colours (ill. 9).
The accumulation of fowl and game, symbols of wealth, traditionally warns the viewer of the difficult quest for spirituality in a terrestrial life where material pleasures unceasingly offer distractions to man. Hunting was considered to be a futile occupation in some 17th century vanities. Already, in the Bible, the hunter Esau is obliged to give up his birthright to Jacob, his more industrious and reflective younger sibling. In our still-life, the artist pays tribute to the initial intensity of the sensations that enrich our relations with the world, without necessarily warning us against the thoughtless abuse of the pleasures of the senses. It celebrates the overabundance of products of nature with unlimited fertility, and offers them to the connoisseur by imposing tempting proximity. It sets off an entire range of pleasant sensations. Vision, which plays an essential part, does not for as much exhaust the other senses: touch is suggested by the illusionistic rendering of the textures, taste by the presence of the dishes evoking a succulent feast, and smell by the perfume of the roses. The objects abandon their moralizing position and are principally shown for themselves, as simple motifs. The importance given to emotion and the paint itself, by using it generously with radiant colour exhaling sensuality, compensates for the absence of any religious dimension. Pure mimetic pleasure, ulterior in 17th century vanities, is fully affirmed in this seductive trompe- l’oeil, characteristic of a courtly art that foreshadows the arrival of the rococo. Faithful to the authentic realism of ancient Roman still-lifes painted with the requirement of mimesis, Munari describes the products of the earth in their natural obviousness. Deprived of all sacredness, the dead animals, fruits and vegetables nonetheless retain their rhythm and plenitude.
Amélie du Closel
2. We are grateful to Ms. Claudia Salvi for the information provided in her letter of 8 October 2007.
3. A. Ghidiglia Quintavalle, “Cristoforo Munari et la nature morte à Parme”, L’Œil, pp. 13-18.
4. The no less spectacular oil on copper painting showing a Cauliflower, oranges, citrons, asparagus and artichokes which was sold by Rossini in 2015 in this group, should in our view be included in this group. For the many reasons mentioned above, it is indisputably by the same hand (ill. 6).
5. See Marco Chiarini, 1989, p. 32-39.
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