Portrait of Mario Nuzzi at the Easel

Mario Nuzzi, called Mario dei Fiori, was the leading specialist in the genre of flower still-lifes, active in Italy in the seventeenth century. He executed the present painting, along with a cycle of four canvases depicting the Seasons, for Cardinal Flavio Chigi. These paintings are characterized by a sublime pictorial quality and the perfect balance between still-life elements and figures. The painter was assisted by five of the era’s talented history painters, in the case of the present painting, by the gifted Florentine Giovanni Maria Morandi (1622-1717).