Two Fluted Bowls, One on Base

Giuseppe Grisoni · n.d.

Medium

Gouache over black chalk, on ivory laid paper, pieced together

Original size

16.5 × 13.4 cm (6 1/2 × 5 5/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Baroque

Giuseppe Grisoni's *Two Fluted Bowls, One on Base* is a quietly refined still life study that rewards close attention — its delicate forms rendered with a precision that sits somewhere between documentary observation and pure aesthetic pleasure. Grisoni was born in Mons to Italian parents and built a career moving between England, Florence, and Rome, working variously as a portrait painter and decorative artist under aristocratic and Medici patronage. This work, executed in gouache over black chalk on ivory laid paper, reflects the continental tradition of fine object study — the pieced-together support suggesting it was likely assembled from separate sheets, a common practice for large preparatory drawings of this period. The gouache medium allowed Grisoni to capture both the cool opacity of ceramic and the subtle play of light across the fluted ridges with a control that oil on canvas rarely permits at this scale. The drawing is held in the Art Institute of Chicago as part of their European works on paper collection, where its intimate scale and technical finesse have made it a quietly admired example of eighteenth-century decorative draughtsmanship. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates Grisoni's studied stillness into the richness of oil paint, preserving the interplay of light and form while giving the composition the presence it deserves on a wall.