MALTESE, Francesco

Italian painter, also called Francesco Fieravino. He was a painter of still-lifes like his contemporary Benedetto Fioravanti, with whose works Maltese’s have been confused. In 17th-century documents and inventories, however, a distinction between their paintings is made. The name of Maltese first appears in a Barberini inventory (1631-6), which lists ‘six paintings in oil on paper, of varied flowers’, and then in numerous inventories ending with that (1659) of the collection of Archduke Leopold William of Austria, in which his works are distinguished from those of Fioravanti.

Maltese’s style is puzzlingly close to that of Evaristo Baschenis and Bartolomeo Bettera (1639-1688), yet it seems more probable that it had its roots in a Roman tradition of still-life. Often including carpets, his still-lifes are painted with thick strokes in a forcefully realistic manner, like the later work of Michelangelo Pace del Campidoglio, the Pseudo Caroselli (1600-1650), Meiffren Conte (c. 1630-1705) and Giuseppe Recco. Engravings made by Jacobus Coelemans in 1703 and 1704 of two paintings entitled Still-Life with Musical Instruments (both untraced) and inscribed Le Maltois pinxit record the works that may be most securely attributed to Maltese. They are monumental compositions, showing tables loaded with many objects. The paint surface of other still-lifes attributable to Maltese, such as the Still-Life with Jewelcase Bearing the Barberini Crest (private collection), is lively.