Prospero Mallerini (Active in Rome toward the end of the eighteenth century and during the first half of the nineteenth century)

A trompe l’oeil vanitas still life with a bronze crucifix, a bronze statuette of a putto holding an unlit candle, a skull, an open book, an aspersorium with an olive branch, and a grisaille of the Madonna

signed, dated and inscribed lower right on the base of the bronze statuette: P. Mallerini f. 1827/Romae
oil on canvas
39 ½ x 29 ½ inches (100.4 x 75 cm.)

Provenance:
Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 25 January 2008, lot 201.


Prospero Mallerini was an architect and painter active in Rome at the turn of the nineteenth century.  His career can be traced through a number of signed and dated works; the earliest dated 1794 and the latest 1832.  The artist enjoyed considerable success through his architectural and artistic commissions from the influential Barberini family in Rome, including a family portrait in 1802 and a plan for a sferisterio, or small open-air theater, in 1837.    
Although there are only two known still lifes by Mallerini, the artist frequently incorporated vanitas still life elements in many of his paintings and religious altarpieces.  His earliest known painting, Portrait of a Capuchin monk (Museo Francescano, Rome), includes a crucifix and skull similar to those in the present work.  In addition, the family portrait mentioned above, as well as his altarpiece of San Giovanni Battista della Concezione (Church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Rome), incorporate many of these same elements.
The objects in the present trompe l'oeil painting are depicted illusionistically, within the cupboard of a private chapel.  Mallerini masterfully painted a white curtain trimmed with green tassels, drawn back to reveal the devotional contents inside the cupboard.  The billowing satin fabric envelopes a bronze statuette of a putto holding an unlit candle – the extinguished candle likely alluding to the frailty of human life.  A human skull, perhaps the ultimate vanitas symbol, sits atop an open book with crumpled pages.  The knotty pine planks act as a backdrop and provide support for a hanging bronze crucifix and an aspersorium with an olive branch.  
The aforementioned second still life¹, signed and dated 1832, has a correlating composition and bears almost identical measurements to our canvas; it was most likely intended as a pendant to our painting.  This other picture contains a portable altar with a rosary draped over an olive branch and books in the lower left corner, set against a backdrop of similar wood planks.  Mallerini’s detailed rendering of the objects in both works suggests that they were based upon props in the artist's studio, or perhaps objects belonging to the family who commissioned the paintings.