Still Life with Birds and Fruit (c. 1650): Art, History and Details

Still Life with Birds and Fruit (c. 1650) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Giovanna Garzoni (Italian, 1600–1670).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

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.

Object facts

• Title: Still Life with Birds and Fruit
• Date: c. 1650
• Creator attribution: Giovanna Garzoni (Italian, 1600–1670)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: watercolor with graphite, heightened with lead white
• Dimensions: Sheet: 25.7 x 41.6 cm (10 1/8 x 16 3/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - Italian
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1955.140

A detail from the museum

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

Collection credit

Bequest of Mrs. Elma M. Schniewind in memory of her parents Mr. and Mrs. Frank Geib

Further reading listed by the museum

• Bacci, Mina, "Jacopo Ligozzi e la Sua Posizione Nella Pittura Fiorentina," Proporzioni Vol. IV (1963):
• Palazzo reale (Naples, Italy). La Natura morta italiana. Milano: Alfieri & Lacroix, 1964.
• Columbia University, and Joan Nissman. Florentine Baroque Art from American Collections. 1969.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.