Margherita Caffi Biography
Margherita Caffi (Cremona, 1647 – Milan, 20 September 1710) was an Italian painter. Among his clients are the archdukes of Tyrol (many of his paintings are still in Austria today), the kings of Spain and the grand dukes of Tuscany; in particular his art was much appreciated by Vittoria Della Rovere. The last years of her existence were spent in Milan, where she gave birth to a thriving local school of still life painters. Daughter of the painter of French origin Vincenzo Volò, born in Cremona in 1647, Margherita Caffi is known above all for her compositions of fruit and flowers. She was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca in Milan, together with her sister Francesca known as la Vicenzina and an unidentified Lucrezia Ferraria, starting from 2 February 1697, according to a document recently found by Alberto Cottino. Certainly inspired by similar Nordic paintings, Caffi shows, in the extreme freedom of the pictorial drafting, of the free and lively brushwork, influences on the Venetian painting of Elisabetta Marchioni and on the still lifes of the so-called 'pseudo Guardi'.
