It is with great pride that I open this catalogue of still-life paintings, which accompanies the exhibition, Nature in theSpotlight: European Still Life 1600-1700, held at our London gallery. As a collector of seventeenth and eighteenth-century paintings of the Italian school, the still life has always held a particular fascination for me. The range ofsentiments that the representation of inanimate objects can express is one of the genre's many unique qualities, which has, unfortunately, been lost to recent audiences. My hope is that the selection of paintings in this exhibition, representedand discussed in the present catalogue, will encourage today's viewers to appreciate the contemplative, exuberant, tragic, poignant, religious and romantic attributes that this type of painting can possess. Chosen for their ability to demonstrate these values, the group derives from a collection of still life that has been steadily accumulated over the years and nowenjoys almost eighty examples from across the genre.
As we enter the year 2015, it might be argued that the Baroque still life now holds little relevance in a world thatfavours the stark, cryptic imagery of contemporary art practice; in fact, the decorative still life of the seventeenthcentury can, in many ways, be seen as its polar opposite. However, my belief is that this seicento imagery holds auniversal appeal, as it pushes visual representation to the limits of the picture surface. Just as art-lovers in Rome applauded them at the time of their execution, I hope that audiences internationally will enjoy the fine examples of still-life painting in this exhibition.