Octavianus Monfort (Turin, second half of the 17th century) Still life with fruit, flowers, fish and crustaceans, tempera on parchment
... Monfort was very active in Turin. His painting, decorative and always very recognizable stylistically due to the fine treatment of details and the delicate "blown" effect of the color, was much imitated and the epigones are numerous and not always well identified at present. The aforementioned document of 1646 therefore testifies that Monfort's activity extends for about fifty years; the known dated works are instead staggered, for now, only in the decade 80-90 of the 17th century: there are therefore no references to the artist's youthful style and to the even later one that reaches up to the year of death (1696). The quantity of Monfort's works known both in public and private collections is very high: considering that to execute parchments of this type and with such a fineness of detail it was necessary not a little time, we believe that Monfort may have had his own atelier in which students assisted the master in the creation of paintings, which in Piedmont enjoyed a constant market fortune throughout the second half of the 17th century... cf. Dott. Cav. Arabella Cifani
Tempera: height cm. 30 width cm. 40
With frame: height cm. 57 width cm. 67
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