BARTOLOMEO BIMBI (Settignano, 1648 - Florence, 1729) Still Life of Fruit Oil on canvas, cm 40X52 Provenance: London, Sotheby's, 6 July 1988, lot 163 (as Abraham Brueghel) Rome, Finarte, 8 March 2007, lot 661 (as Bartolomeo Bimbi) Private collection The canvas, of beautiful quality and freshness, can be traced back to Bartolomeo Bimbi's catalogue. The painter's first biographer, Francesco Baldinucci, praised his production unequivocally, stating: '... neither Titian nor Raphael, nor any painter in the world who had wanted to do fruit and flowers would ever have come to do them in those forms and so well'. The training in the Roman atelier of Mario Nuzzi, known as Mario dei Fiori, can be seen in the very high quality of his work, especially in his floral still lifes, which not only earned him great fame but also allowed him to benefit unparalleledly from the Medici commissions. It must be remembered that his repertoire ranged over every form of representable nature and his unparalleled scientific precision was supported by specialists such as the botanist Antonio Micheli. In fact, in comparison to Scacciati's free pictorial conduct, Bimbi is distinguished by a lucid, slow and precise execution, in harmony with a representation of resplendent clarity. It is necessary to quote Baldinucci again when he describes that: 'his bouquets of flowers with their leaves and foliage, always varied in the choice of specimens, or the lustre given to many by the dew', to best describe and praise the painter's work and talent. Reference bibliography: S. Meloni Trkulja, L. Tongiorgi Tomasi, Bartolomeo Bimbi. Un pittore di piante e animali alla corte dei Medici, Florence 2008, p. 109, nn. 47-48