(active in Rovigo in the second half of the 17th Century)
Roses, anemones, red carnations, guelder rose and other flowers in an urn; and
Roses, anemones, tulips, carnations, guelder rose and other flowers in an urn,
oil on canvas, each 110 x 146 cm, framed, a pair (2)

Provenance:
Private European collection

We are grateful to Alberto Cottino for confirming the attribution of the present paintings and for his help in cataloguing the present lot.

This pair of works, or pendants, each represent a large metal vase at the center, filled with roses, anemones, tulips, carnations, guelder rose and other flowers, creating a triumph of cultivated garden and wild meadow flowers. Alongside these are other plants: pink and yellow roses trained on canes.

The present paintings can be compared to the Vase of flowers by Marchioni in the Accademia dei Concordi di Rovigo and this painting is cited, by Marchioni’s biographer Francesco Bartoli, as being originally located on the altar of the Capuchin church. At present the Rovigo painting is the only documented work by the artist, and it therefore serves as an essential reference point for the reconstruction of her oeuvre. The present works are entirely comparable, in the style of painting and the quality and form of the vases, with the flowers arranged in a burst and as if moving in a light breeze, to those in the Rovigo altarpiece, therefore confirming the attribution to Elisabetta Marchioni.

The painterly style of the present works is purposefully swift and summary in some parts, and more detailed in other areas, such as the in the leaves and petals. This is most marked in the foreground flowers where the paint is applied densely, thickening the impasto to become more evocative than realistic (E. Safarik, F. Bottari, Elisabetta Marchioni, in: F. Zeri/F. Porzio, La Natura Morta in Italia, Milan 1989, vol. I, pp. 329–333).

From an historical point of view, Elisabetta Marchioni remains a somewhat mysterious figure as little is known of her life story. Her biographer, Francesco Bartoli, only recorded a few biographical details. From him, we know that she was married to a goldsmith named Sante Marchioni (regrettably her maiden name is not known) and she died in old age ‘around the year 1700’ (F. Bartoli, Le pitture, sculture ed architetture della città di Rovigo, Venice 1793, pp. 318–319). The author celebrates her considerable production, confirming that she had deserved her great renown and that: ‘quasi tutte le case di Rovigo hanno quattro, sei, otto pezzi di questa Pittrice’ [‘almost all the houses of Rovigo have four, six, eight works by this painter’] (F. Bartoli, Ibid, 1793, p. 318). Some years later the Abbé Luigi Lanzi in his Storia pittorica della Italia (1809) cited her fleetingly as ‘la Marchioni rodigina’ (L. Lanzi, Storia pittorica della Italia dal risorgimento delle belle arti fin presso al fine del XVIII secolo, Bassano 1809, vol. 3, p. 257).