Still Life with Musical Instruments

Evaristo Baschenis

Download hi-res image TITLE Still Life with Musical Instruments
AUTHOR Evaristo Baschenis
DATE c. 1650 - 60
OBJECT TYPE AND MATERIAL Oil on canvas
DIMENSIONS cm 60 x 88
INVENTORY 2089
ROOM XXXIII
FIRMA EVARISTO BASCHENI F.
Work on display

On the table, starting on the left, we see a low-pitched shawn, a mandora, a violin with a bow and a tablature, a system of musical notation for string instruments. Books, fruit and a flute before a curtain complete the composition constructed on the basis of strict scientific rules reflecting the treatises on perspective and the wooden marquetry of the 15th century. Such naturalistic details as the fingerprints in the dust on the mandora may be interpreted as a warning pointing to the inexorable passage of time.