Description

This is the first monograph and proper study on Francesco Noletti (c.1611-54), called il Maltese (and popularly known as Francesco Fieravino). He is one of the most significant yet enigmatic artists in the study of still-life painting of the Roman seicento. His work encapsulates the spirit of the 'baroque still-life', primarily through a typology of 'carpet paintings' that he popularized in Rome during the 1640s and early 1650s. Francesco Noletti is credited to have significantly imprinted theatrically-placed heavy folded carpets as the primary focus of his impressive still-life compositions, with such folds animating and dominating the painting rather than being merely tactile covers of tables or ledges on which the objects were placed. The thick impasto and monumental folds of Noletti's carpets imbued his works with a forceful movement, tactile richness and theatricality that responded perfectly to the baroque manner of the 'main-stream' artists.