Lot 210: Paolo Paoletti (Padua c. 1671-1735 Udine)

Leeks and cabbages on a ledge with mushrooms, figs, onions and cabbages by ruins in a river landscape; Grapes, pomegranates, onions, a melon and a pear tree in a pot on two stone ledges, with fish, cabbages and artichokes, by ruins in an extensive mountainous landscape; and Dead game on a stone ledge with roses, tulips, cabbages and carrots by a ruined castle in an extensive mountainous landscape
oil on canvas
45 7/8 x 23 5/8 in. (116.6 x 60.1 cm.); 55 1/2 x 41 1/2 in (141 x 105.4 cm.); 45 7/8 x 23 5/8 in. (116.6 x 60.1 cm.)
a set of three (3)

T. Miotti, La nature morte di Paolo Paoletti (1671? - 1735), exhibition catalogue, Udine, 1954, pp. 15 and 23.

Private collection, Johannesburg.

These paintings had been recognised as by Paoletti by Professor Piero Sticotti, director of the Museo Revoltella in Trieste from 1926 to 1929. The attribution has since been confirmed by Professor Miotti in the catalogue of the Udine exhibition in 1954.
Little is known of Paolo Paoletti, who was active almost exclusively in the Friuli region, where he painted for private patrons specializing in still lifes. His apprenticeship is not recorded, but at the time he was considered to be the Italian Daniel Seghers and his style shows a continuing evolution that demonstrates his assiduous study of Venetian as well as Flemish art. In his later career, he experimented by introducing landscape and capriccio elements from the Venetian tradition into his still life compositions, as these paintings clearly demonstrate, as well as those in the Passamonti collection, and in the Prefettura, Trieste (Miotti, op. cit., p. 18, pls. 12 and 13).

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