17th Century, Follower Of Giuseppe Recco (naples,1634- Alicante,1695), Still Life Of Fish

17th century, follower of Giuseppe Recco (Naples,1634- Alicante,1695)

Still life of fish, squid, oysters and corals on the beach

Oil on canvas, 57.5 x 117 cm

With frame, cm

On the back of the canvas seal in wax and inventary label of the early twentieth century bearing the inscription "P.[or]ta/ sc. [uola] Sorrento/ lot no.3 / [...] Recco".

This canvas pursues in full the styles of the seventeenth-century still life that had as a genre in Naples one of its capitals. There are many names that stand out in this typology of works, representing flowers, fruits, musical instruments and animals, including fish, molluscs and crustaceans. In this sense, Giuseppe Recco was one of the cornerstones of the Neapolitan school, representing different subjects in his production but with a particular propensity for marine still lifes, later taken up by his sons Elena and Nicola Maria; pupil of Paolo Porpora and son of the painter Giacomo, the Recco conceived compositions that made school within the pictorial panorama Neapolitan but managing to stand out especially for the representation of marine fauna, as attested by critics and biographers, for the vivid rendering and brightness of the latter that would surpass that of all those who had preceded him. This work fully reproduces its style and compositions: the scales of fish reflecting the light, highlighted by a dark setting, the disordered arrangement, the variety of species, including mullet, barracuda, branzino, eyes, red corals, grey squid and dark-shelled oysters. The opening on the sea background does not contrast with the protagonists of the foreground and the cloudy sky, together with the rocks of dark earthy color, recreates in a varied and airy form the completely dark and indoor environments present in other representations.