A Space of Their Own

Margherita Caffi

1650–September 20, 1710

Active in: Italy
Alternate names: Vicentina, Vincenzina, Margherita Volò

Biography

Born in Milan in 1650, Margherita Caffi was the daughter of Vincenzo Volò (1620–1671), a still-life painter. Little is known about her life and training but she likely learned to paint from her father and, like him, she became a specialist in still-life painting. In 1668, she married Ludivico Caffi (ca. 1641–1695), a still-life painter in Cremona. Together, they had four children. Her paintings were admired and collected by aristocrats and royals in Austria and Spain, and by Vittoria della Rovere (1622–1694), the wife of Grand Duke Ferdinando II de’Medici (1610–1670). By 1697, Caffi was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca in Milan, along with her sister Francesca Volò Smiller (1657–1700), who was also a painter. She also lived in Piacenza but died in Milan on September 20, 1710.

Selected Works

A horizontal-format still life with a brown pot at the center overflowing with flowers of every color. The composition is set against a dark background.

Margherita Caffi, Jarrón con flores, 1670–80. Oil on canvas, 85 x 120 cm. Museo Carralbo.

A floral still life with white and pink roses filling the entire composition. A smaller assortment of flowers in a vase is included on the left side of the canvas.

Margherita Caffi, Rosal en flor, ca. 1680–1700. Oil on canvas, 152 x 196 cm. Museo del Prado.

An arrangement of white, pink, red, orange, and yellow flowers in an elaborate vase on the right side of the horizontal canvas. Another cluster of flowers appears on the left, both set against a dark background.

Margherita Caffi, Still-Life with a Vase of Flowers, n.d. Oil on canvas, 109 x 136 cm. Private collection.

An elaborate floral still life with multiple arrangements of flowers in every color filling the entire composition. The background is dark and there are clusters of delicate, white flowers sitting on the table in the bottom right corner of the composition.

Margherita Caffi, Swathes of Flowers in Urns on a Ledge, n.d. Oil on canvas, 75.8 x 95.8 cm. Private collection.

A floral still life with pots of flower on two levels, filling the vertical canvas. The flowers are mostly pink, white, and red, with some yellow and a blue ribbon accenting one of the bouquets.

Margherita Caffi, Florero, ca. 1678–1700. Oil on canvas, 104 x 65 cm. Museo del Prado.

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Selected works
 

Circle

Daughter of
Vincenzo Volò (1620–1671)

Sister of
Francesca Volò Smiller (1657–1700)

Wife of
Ludivico Caffi (ca. 1641–1695)

Bibliography

Barigozzi, Brini et al. “Caffi, Margharita.” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol 16. Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1973.

Bocchi, Gianluca. “Vincenzo Volò pittore di nature morte: la origini borgognone e alcuni aspetti della sua attività Milanese,” Arte Lombarda no. 170/71 (2014): 62–75.

Burke, Marcus B. and Peter Cherry. Collections of Paintings in Madrid, 1601-1755. Los Angeles: Getty Institute, 1997.

Casciu, Stefano, Marco Chiarini, and Patrizia Pietrogrande. Natura Morta: Still-Life Painting and the Medici Collections. Florence: Contemporanea Progetti, 2006.

Couchman, Jane and Allyson M. Poska. The Ashgate Research Companion to Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe. New York: Routledge, 2016.

Findlen, Paula, Wendy Wassyng Roworth, and Catherine M. Sama, eds. Italy’s Eighteenth Century: Gender and Culture in the Age of the Grand Tour. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009.

Frescobaldi, Dino, and Francesco Solinas. The Frescobaldi: A Florentine Family. Florence: Le Lettere, 2004.

Gaze, Delia, ed. Dictionary of Women Artists, A-I. London and Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.

Pallucchini, Rodolfo. La pittura veneziana del Seicento. Venice: Alfieri, 1981.

Rossen, Susan F. The Twilight of the Medici: Late Baroque Art in Florence, 1670-1743. Florence: Centro Di, 1974.

Spike, John T. The Sense of Pleasure: A Collection of Still Life Paintings. Milan: Skira, 2003.