Christian Matteo Wehrlin (circa 1731, active between 1756 – 1774)

Still Life with a Thieving Cat in a Niche

84 x 66 cm / 33 × 26
Monogrammed at the bottom of the balustrade: W (ehrlin) F (ecit).

We would like to thank Letizia Treves, Christie’s, as well as Fred Meijer (both from July 15, 2025), for their valuable input during the research.

The present painting has had a curious fate: As early as 1929, according to the earliest photographic documentation we have, the visible cat with the fish in its mouth had disappeared. It had been overpainted, and even before the auction at Christie’s in 2004, the cat was still lost in the shadow of the niche. However, using UV light, its outline was detectable, and it was subsequently freed from the overpainting. The artist, identified by Fred Meijer as Christian Wehrlin (also documented as Cristiano Matteo Verlin, Verlino, or Wehrlein), was the son of Johann Adam Wehrlin, a Nuremberg native who oversaw the transport of Prince Eugene's painting collection to its new owner, Carlo Emanuele III, King of Sardinia, and was appointed in 1743 as the restorer of the royal collections in Turin (Inspettore delle Gallerie di Sua Maesta Sarda). He settled there with his family. Along with his sons Venceslao Wehrlin (1745 – 1780) and Pietro Paolo Wehrlin (active 1771 – 1780), his son Christian Matteo Wehrlin was also active in Turin. He was trained by Claudio Francesco Beaumont (1756). The king sent him to Egypt along with Giovanni Ronco, Vitaliano Donati, and Paolo Cornaglia. In addition to the drawings he made there, one of his paintings is recorded at the RKD in The Hague under number 286087 and is monogrammed CWF, with the last two letters matching the monogram on our painting. This painting depicts the central bird in a similar pose with a comparable cat standing next to it. A fully signed painting by his hand is preserved in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Strasbourg under inventory number 1554, showing a similar animal piece with fruit in a horizontal arrangement. A painting also recorded in the Fondazione Zeri under number 92320 is monogrammed and shows the same cat in a reduced environment, but with a vine leaf tendril. After his stay in Egypt, which provided him with natural historical observations, he worked between 1761 and 1768 in the East Wing of the Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi for the Duke of Chiablese. In 1768, he traveled to Venice to learn the current Venetian painting style. At least two paintings by him have survived from this period. In 1774, he traveled to Piedmont, where he created paintings for Princess Giuseppina of Savoy, as well as a sketchbook now housed in Palazzo Madama in Turin. Later, he moved to England, where his trail fades. The Piemontese painter-poet Ignazio Nepote remarked about Wehrlin: "Verlino ha tal coraggio, / che ritrarrebbe d’Affrica / le bestie più terribili, / ma sempre con gran spirito," which roughly reflects the character of his paintings, which were also integrated into supraportes and trumeau mirrors.

Literature
See: Le Gallerie degli Uffizi, imagines – il Magazine delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, 7, November 2022, p. 50 f.