18th Century, Pair of Still Lifes by Pietro Francesco Gambone

Pietro Francesco Gambone (Turin -Italy, 1682-1740)
Couple of still lifes with flowers and fruits

The two paintings, of good quality and in good condition, are characterized by a bright and lively chromatic palette. They depict two still lifes with a triumph of flowers and which adorn crater vases, resting on marble bases, inserted in a landscape in which lush plants participate in framing the paintings. The canvas on the left shows, in the foreground, some plants with soft yellow flowers that rise at the base of an architectural element at the top of which is placed a vase on which climb some blue bells. A rich composition of fruit, with peaches and grapes, is collected in a wicker basket. Some peaches rest in front. In the other canvas, on the right, the painter places an inverted plate from which they pour white and black grapes, peaches and flowers. In the foreground on the left, three mushrooms rest on the ground, balancing the structure of the painting. The elegant and balanced composition of the canvases is of pleasant spectacular impact and great decorative effect.
Stylistically the works are attributable to Pietro Francesco Gambone, a Italian (Turin) painter still little known even if of considerable importance in the genre of north Italian painting of flowers, landscapes and architecture in the first half of the eighteenth century. Pietro Francesco was born in Turin in 1682, the son of Aurelio Gambone, a painter of Lugano origin who left him an orphan in 1708. The year before Pietro Francesco married and in 1713 the documents record him as an accredited painter in Turin, where he died around 1737-40. Documents and works signed and dated begin to outline the artistic path of this painter. The scholars concur, assigning some works present on the antique market, in the attempt to reconstruct a corpus of works useful to trace the evolution of his pictorial language. Pietro Francesco Gambone is certainly stylistically close to Michele Rapos, although he paints flowers and still lifes with a softer and faster brush stroke. The references to Cignaroli’s painting are also evident in his backgrounds.
Some of his still lifes preserved in a private collection, can be combined with those presented here. The characteristic flowers, fluffy and fluffy, with the big corollas a bit 'undone, the way in which they are described vases and baskets, as well as the type of landscape described in the background are found in the canvases in object, as well as in the certain works assigned to him.

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