Vase of Flowers, Fruit and Vegetables

This canvas consists of two pieces sewn together along a horizontal seam, and its pendant of dead birds, hanging in the same room, was put together in exactly this way. Technical studies carried out for a still-life exhibition at the Galleria Borghese in 2016 also found an identical thin underdrawing, traced straight onto the ground, and the slow layering of glazes in both. That confirmed one painter made the pair, though it could not say who. The pictures differ slightly in size because of trimming at some unknown date, mostly on the short sides, which is why some of the produce at the edges is cut off so abruptly. Near the centre, a lizard and a green lizard cross the ledge. Cold-blooded animals like these were read as a good sign, able to bring a careless person back to the right path.