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Still Life with Birds and Fruit

c. 1650
(Italian, 1600–1670)
Italy
watercolor with graphite, heightened with lead white
Support: Vellum
Sheet: 25.7 x 41.6 cm (10 1/8 x 16 3/8 in.)
Bequest of Mrs. Elma M. Schniewind in memory of her parents Mr. and Mrs. Frank Geib 1955.140
Location: not on view
Public Domain
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Did You Know?

Giovanna Garzoni was one of just a few women artists to rise to prominence in Italy in the 1600s.

Description

Garzoni was one of the few women artists to achieve prominence in Italy during the 1600s. She garnered fame with her naturalistic still lifes on vellum, which combined scientific accuracy with sensitive artistry. Here, three small goldfinches on fruit branches and a larger bee-eater are dispersed across an earth-toned ground. The goldfinches sit on branches from which hang two plums (left), a peach (center), and a pear (right). A yellow quince and purple fig appear in the left foreground. Garzoni’s refined interpretations of the natural world suited the taste of aristocratic patrons like the Medici family, who acquired her drawings to decorate their villas.
Watercolor painting of four birds among fruit. On the upper right three goldfinches with red faces, a white stripe, then black and brown bodies with muted yellow wings each sit on a branch with fruit. In the lower left, a bee-eater bird twice the goldfinches' size and with a long, thin beak and red-brown feathers with blue touches on its chest, wings, and around the eye, facing our left, two fruit placed in front.

Still Life with Birds and Fruit

c. 1650

Giovanna Garzoni

(Italian, 1600–1670)
Italy

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