(Viterbo 1587–1625 Rome) A basket of grapes, oil on canvas, 52 x 69 cm, framed

The present painting can be compared to works catalogued under the name of the ‘Master of the Acquavella Still-Life’ such as the painting offered at Dorotheum 17th October 2012, lot 574. The master was named after the Still-life with a Basket of Fruit and a Vase of Flowers formerly with the Acquavella Gallery, New York, and subsequently in the Lorenzetti collection, Bergamo. These works are considered to be amongst the most important still-lifes created in Rome during the second and third decades of the seventeenth century. Cavarozzi’s formative years were spent in Rome, studying with the Viterbese painter Tarquinio Ligustri and with Giovanni Battista Crescenzi who held an Academy for painters in his Palazzo by the Pantheon. Crescenzi was a nobleman, and the participants in the classes in his academy were inspired by the love that Philip Neri evinced for the smallest objects of God’s creation, for the fruits and flowers that Crescenzi encouraged his students to study attentively. It is not at all clear that they understood or attempted to master the technique that Caravaggio had of recreating the painted equivalent of the image he saw in a camera obscura or one of a ‘picture’ reflected from a parabolic mirror; and indeed there was certainly a professional jealousy on Caravaggio´s part that led him to resent any attempt to compete in the same effects. But many artists, like Florentines Jacopo da Empoli, Santi di Tito and Cigoli, were trying to achieve a ‘reality’ in painting well before Caravaggio. Cavarozzi shared in this interest in the observation of nature, and the present picture is surely inspired by Caravaggio´s Basket of Fruit painted for Cardinal Federico Borromeo, now in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan.

In fact the association of Cavarozzi’s works with Caravaggio does not only include his still-lifes but also some of his other works such as Saint John the Baptist in Toledo Cathedral and the Sacrifice of Isaac in the Piasecka Johnson collection, a work that was perhaps even painted in Spain. These works show the extent to which Caravaggio’s influence in the observations of light and shade affected Cavarozzi´s oeuvre. Cavarozzi had an important role as a conveyor of Italian Caravaggism to Spain, where the style influenced artists such as Murillo and Zurbarán.

We are grateful to Professor Mina Gregori for confirming the attribution of the present painting.