Francesco Noletti, Il Maltese

FRANCESCO NOLETTI "Il Maltese" (Valletta? c. 1611-Rome, 1654).
"Still life with allegory of science and art".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
It conserves frame of epoch.
Measurements: 89.5 x 124 cm; 108 x 142 cm (frame).
Noletti, active mainly in Rome, was famous for his dense and ornamental compositions that put in dialogue the material luxury with intellectual symbolism. In this work, the artist unfolds an exuberant scene where objects of study, art and power visually dialogue with rich textiles and plays of light and shadow that evoke the theatricality of tenebrism. On a table partially covered by an oriental rug, musical instruments (a mandolin or lute), books bound in gilded leather, a globe, an armillary sphere and an embroidered cushion holding a natural trumpet or cornet are placed in the foreground. The background tapestry, carelessly hung and held in place by tassels, reinforces the atmosphere of opulence.
Light bathes the objects from a diagonal angle, accentuating the metallic sheens of the globe and trumpet, and highlighting the textures of the velvet and the bangs of the tapestry. The rug, with its complex ornamentation, acts almost like a painting within a painting, a symbol of the oriental craftsmanship and exoticism so highly valued in Baroque collecting circles. Each object on the table seems chosen not only for its aesthetic value, but also for its symbolic charge. The globe and the armillary sphere refer to cosmography and universal knowledge; the books evoke study and the transmission of knowledge; the musical instruments point to harmony, mathematics and the liberal arts. The whole ensemble suggests an implicit vanitas.

Francesco Noletti, called il Maltese was an Italian Baroque painter, born, as his nickname indicates, in Malta and specialized in still life painting. Noletti's still lifes have been attributed to the so-called Francesco Fieravino or Fioravanti, a confused creation of the 18th century, until, in the early 2000s, his true identity was discovered from an anonymous portrait preserved in the Foundation for International Studies in Valletta, in the building of the old university. His biography shows that around 1640 or earlier he settled in Rome, where he married and collaborated with Andrea Sacchi. Famous already during his lifetime, he was praised, always by his nickname, by Cornelis de Bie and Joachim von Sandrart and later also by Joshua Reynolds, among others. In the absence of signed works, two engravings published in 1703 by Jacobus Coelemans on paintings by the Maltese, entitled Omnis salus in ferro est and Quaedam sensum instrumenta, have served as a basis for establishing his style, in which some elements are repeated. His rich still lifes are characterized by the presence of Turkish carpets, tapestries and curtains covering the tables and shelves on which rest pieces of crockery, flowers and fruits capriciously arranged next to some precious object, musical instruments and framed pictures or mirrors. Three still lifes, already identified as the work of "il Maltese" by Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, are kept in the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, where they were admitted in the 1920s with attributions to Antonio de Pereda and Pieter Boel.