Cherries and Carnations

But a simple, small pile of cherries and a few random carnations, placed in a shallow ceramic plate, can become a study in the barely perceptible motion, the rounded, swelling contours Garzoni gives each cherry, which make the fruit feel like it's still ripening instead of just sitting, waiting for a portrait. That's a distinction that counts: natura morta is the Italian word for still life, and Garzoni's fruit does not even hint at stillness, alive with curve and roundness instead of with any incident of a story. The twenty plates of this group were painted by Garzoni between approximately 1655 and 1662 for the Duchess of Tuscany, Vittoria della Rovere, and her husband, the Grand Duke of Tuscany Ferdinando II de' Medici; the Duchess was also a great admirer of floriculture and exhibited all her plates together in a single room found in her favourite house, the Villa di Poggio Imperiale, the Stanza dell'Aurora. Garzoni's work is done in a challenging watercolour on parchment, a technique she developed during her previous life as a court miniaturist in Turin, where she excelled at capturing intricate details, traditionally seen only with magnification, and now available at a new level of clarity thanks to digital zoom. Rarely, however, this kind of work received a formal title from Garzoni herself, as accounts from the period indicate that she used only a simple descriptive one, such as "a painting with cherries and carnations," and that the contents of the plate were an adequate description.