Circle of Francesco Noletti known as il Maltese (Valletta? c. 1611 – Rome, 1654)
Still life with fruit, flowers and carpet
Oil on canvas, cm 72 x 96
With frame, cm 95 x 117
The exuberance of the gaudy colors of the carpet, used as a precious table for the silver plate base of the orderly series of fragrant ripe fruits, matches the consistency of the drapery gathered on the right corner of the painting. The meticulousness with which the artist has been able to render the endless succession of points, knots, and fringes of the carpet allows us to trace its identity back to the school of a pioneer of naturamorphism embellished by this kind of fabrics, namely Francesco Noletti known as il Maltese.
The doubts about Noletti's identity have only recently been dispelled: seventeenth-century literature had only named the artist as Francesco Maltese, accepting the practice of maintaining the indication of the place of origin in the name for foreigners. The subsequent invention at the table of a certain Francesco Fieravino, created in truth to shed light on a third artist, had then become entangled with the data of ancient biographers, triggering the erroneous repetition of the false surname of the Maltese. Thanks to the discovery of a celebratory painting of the artist (Valletta, Foundation for International Studies), it was finally possible to suffocate the myth of Fieravino.
The Maltese was mainly active in the city of Rome, where he met the ardent favor of the wealthy collectors of the time. Adhering mainly to ideals of Baroque composition, the artist produced an exceptional amount of paintings enriched with carpets, armor, curtains and candied fruit, raising pomp to its main formal characteristic. He influenced the future compositions of Giovanni Domenico Valentini, Carlo Manieri and Antonio Tibaldi. To date, there are no known works by Noletti that are animated by characters, despite the ancient sources mentioning several within the catalogs of Roman princes: in the inventory of Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna of 1679, the presence of two canvases "of perspectives, and of figures with gilded frames work of Maltese" was reported, while in that of Anna Maria Costaguti Vidman, countess, a painting by Noletti without human figures, to which Andrea Sacchi later added one.
Almost in homage to the ancient destination, many works of the Maltese embellish private collections today; it is possible to recall, however, the two specimens preserved at the Muzeum Narodowe w Kielcach, located in the Palace of the Bishops of Krakow, as well as the Still life with a helmet kept at the Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg.
The object is in good condition
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