Last year, an Italian nun caused quite a stir at Sotheby’s, London, when her painting titled “Still Life of Birds, Including a Marsh Tit, Chiffchaff, Chaffinch, Blue Tits, Goldcrest, Lapwing and a Great Tit” fetched far more than estimated. The Renaissance painting by mannerist painter Orsola Maddalena Caccia sold for 212,500 pounds ($264,350), 14 times more than its estimate of 10,000 to 15,000 pounds.
Caccia’s bird painting is exceptional for a number of reasons. Even though she was a prolific 17th-century painter, most of her commissioned pieces were religious frescoes and altarpieces, which are still in situ in Italy. Although she painted still-life subjects—Caccia is even credited as the first recorded painter of a floral still life in Italy—they number far fewer than her religious paintings.
