The stylistic features and the rigorous description of the animal, worthy of an artist certainly versed in the naturalistic pictorial genre related to scientific documentation, make it possible to refer the work with certainty to the autograph catalog of Bartolomeo Bimbi, a leading figure of Florentine still-life painting in the late Baroque period. Bimbi started studying painting in Florence. In Rome, he was then a pupil of Mario de' Fiori and specialized in still life. His careful and guarded description of reality combined with his impeccable painting skills fostered demand for the artist's paintings: not only for the local nobility but also for members of the Medici grand ducal family, particularly Cosimo III, for whom he was engaged mainly as a scientific documentarian. In close contact with scholars and scientists, the artist worked for several decades on the execution of canvases, with an almost hyperrealist rigor, depicting flowers, fruit, vegetables, and animals.
