CRESPI, Giuseppe Maria
(b. 1665, Bologna, d. 1747, Bologna)

Bookshelves

c. 1725
Oil on canvas
Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale, Bologna

This is one of the finest achievements in Italian still-life painting of the eighteenth century. The two false bookcases are full of dusty tomes on music and scores that have been hastily consulted and shoved back. The work was probably commissioned by Giovan Battista Martini, a famous Bolognese musicologist who was respected and feared across Europe as a music critic.