Still life with Branches, Warmer, Chicken Coop, Sieve and Almanac hung on the wall

Pseudo Resani (active in the second half of the 18th century)
18th century, Oil on canvas

This suggestive and mysterious still life dates to the Italian 18th century. With its attributes and style (the specular flickering of the lamp; the silent rhythm in the display of the poor kitchen objects; the highly refined perspectival rendering of the many branches, candles, and vegetables, as well as the coop, chair, loaves of bread, and napkins that the artist sets out before our eyes in tidy disarray) it can be grouped with other paintings of similar quality, but the artist remains unknown. It was Carlo Volpe, in 1979, on the occasion of an exhibition of the Emilian 18th century, who coined the very effective pseudonym Pseudo Resani, the name by which the painter is now known due to the affinities that can be discerned with the art of the great specialist of the genre, Arcangelo Resani, a Roman artist who was active in Emilia and Romagna in the first half of the 18th century.