Still Life with Musical Instruments
Bartolomeo BETTERA
(Italian, 1639 - ca. 1688)
Still Life with Musical Instruments
Date1680s
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensionsweight: 49 lb. (22.2 kg)
frame: 53 × 68 5/8 in. (134.6 × 174.3 cm)
canvas: 46 × 62 in. (116.8 × 157.5 cm)
ClassificationPAINTINGS
Credit LineSBMA, Gift of Wright S. Ludington
Object number1957.4.1
Subject(s)
- musical instrument
- still lifes
Collection
- Old Master
Sub-Collection(s)
- Southern European, Italian
On View
On viewLabel TextAlthough unsigned, this painting is unquestionably the work of Bettera. It closely resembles two signed still lifes with very similar subjects now in the collections of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco and the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston. The subject is typical of a classical vanitas: an array of musical instruments whose silence alludes to the transience of mortal pleasures. The astounding verisimilitude is a hallmark of the artist, as are the depicted objects themselves. In fact, the ornate textile, whose woven texture has been painstakingly stamped into the paint, is the same one used by the artist in the Blaffer collection’s still life. This kind of realism probably reflects the influence of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610), whose devotion to truthfulness to nature revolutionized painting in the Baroque era.
