Still Life with Pewter Plate, Shrimps, a Lemon, Glass Cruets, Bread and a Bottle of Wine

Carlo Bianconi, secretary of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan, died in 1802, and two small still lifes were found among his possessions, this one and a companion of the same size. They were bought from his heirs for Brera, which was then being stocked at speed as a public gallery under Napoleonic rule. Bianconi's successor at the Accademia, Giuseppe Bossi, put the name of Ceruti to them in 1806, and the attribution has held. What is laid out is a modest meal. A pewter plate of crayfish, a lemon, bread, two glass cruets for oil and vinegar, a bottle of wine. The museum's English label calls the creatures shrimps and its Italian one now calls them lobsters, while its older catalogue says gamberi.