Italian Still Life Paintings From Three Centuries

It is the purpose and privilege of this exhibition to introduce to the American audiences the Italian genius for the depiction of natura in posa ("nature suspended"). The selection of paintings has been restricted to forty-six, these paintings are not presented as a comprehensive survey of the countless numbers of still lifes painted in Italy from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. The objective of the present exhibition is to identify the most gifted masters in that tradition. Two criteria were applied to this compilation; with very few exceptions the artists were specialists in the genre of still life. The second was the resolution to omit an artist if a suitable example could not be found.