Bartolomeo Castelli il Vecchio was a still life artist working in Rome about whom little is known, whose œuvre has been centred and reconstructed around a small depiction of Grapes, apples and pumpkins, which was found, only in 1987, to be signed with a ‘BC’ monogram (private collects ion; fig. 1).¹ The pumpkin, split into three, and the whole pumpkin beside it in that picture are almost identical to those in the present painting; and similarities may also be found in the way the peaches are dotted with small imperfections. These motifs recur in the other paintings which make up the small group that has now been convincingly ascribed to the artist.

Bartolomeo Castelli, who was the eldest of a family of still life painters, all nicknamed Il Spadino, including his brother Giovanni Paolo and his nephew, also called Bartolomeo, was a contemporary of Michelangelo Pace del Campidoglio, with whom his work (including this painting) is often confused. Bartolomeo’s paintings were clearly influenced by the lavish displays of fruit on staggered, rocky ledges in which Campidoglio specialised. However, as Gianluca and Ulisse Bocchi point out, while Bartolomeo employs a chromatic range of mainly yellow and green tones similar to Campidoglio, his predilection for softer shades of red and purple to create half-tones (most evident here in the peaches), is markedly different from Campidoglio’s style. They also note the distinctive way in which Bartolomeo employs highlights on the luminous grapes (which are without dew – as was favoured by Giovanni Paolo), and around the edges of the rather jagged leaves.

¹ See Bocchi 2005, pp. 583-84, reproduced in colour, p. 584, fig. BCV.1; http://catalogo.fondazionezeri.unibo.it/entry/work/99598/Autore%20non%20indicato%2C%20Natura%20morta%20co n%20meloni%2C%20uva%20e%20pesche