Monnoyer scope, 17th century, Still life of flowers

Scope of Monnoyer, 17th century
Still life of flowers
Oil on canvas, 70 x 98 cm

The still life presents with precious and refined hints a stained bronze basin full of flowers, among which we can recognize fleshy desert roses, mottled tulips whose softly hanging corollas weighed down by the influence of time which causes the thin stems of the flower to bend, blue and red carnations, bluebells and forget-me-nots. The precious and refined vein of the pictorial touch places this painting within the French school of the second half of the seventeenth century, for which possible comparisons are established with Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (1636-1699), an established Franco-Flemish artist specialized in still lifes . The vein of refinement is perceived in his works, see the canvases depicting still lifes with vase of flowers that appeared on the market, they are distinguished by a freshness and immediacy in the rendering of the different floral species, which suggests an in-depth study and from true by the painter. Monnoyer preferred to paint sumptuous and sculptural flowers, with a round shape: the heavy-headed French centifolia, the soft white Roman chamomile, which is almost a leitmotif in his works. The flowers are then placed on a dark background and raked by the light, so as to seem almost moved by a light breeze. Monnoyer moved to Paris in 1650, where he worked on the decorations of the Hôtel Lambert. He was hired by Charles Le Brun with the task of making the decorations of the castle of Marly and the residence of the Dauphin, the castle of Meudon. He entered the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1665. In 1690, he left France for England to work on the pictorial decorations for Montagu House, Bloomsbury, London, where he made over fifty still life paintings with fruits and flowers . Another renowned French-school naturamortist is Nicolas Baudesson (1611-1680), who lived between Paris and Rome; he is remembered as one of the best still life painters of his time and belongs to the two schools of the genre, on the one hand following the rigor of Flemish painting, which concentrated on perfect imitation in the manner and which has its best exponent in De Heem , on the other hand, inspired by the decorative and theatrical taste that distinguishes the Italian painters, of which Monnoyer is also the bearer, as can be seen from the couple of Still lifes in a wicker basket in a private collection.