Description: In A 19th-century Frame. Artist Or Maker: Francesco Lavagna (1684–1724). Medium: Oil

Francesco Lavagna was a leading figure in 18th-century Neapolitan still-life painting, following in the footsteps of Andrea Belvedere and the flourishing French school, and in harmony with Gaspare Lopez. The canvas vividly illustrates the painter’s expressive qualities; he was capable of creating, with effortless ease, a series of similar compositions without ever falling into the banality of illustrative replication
, demonstrating a descriptive ability
of remarkable visual impact, so much so as to foreshadow late-18th-century outcomes akin to those of Guardi. This is first and foremost a confirmation of his instinctive modernity, achieved through skillful glazing and the thickness of the paint, but above all by modulating a luminosity that radiates without hindrance or compromise,
bathing the surface in iridescence.
Bibliography:
B. De Dominici, Vite de pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani, Naples 1742–1745 (facsimile reprint of
1979), p. 575
L. Salerno, La natura morta italiana 1560-1805, Rome 1984,
p. 239, fig. 59.1
A. Tecce, La natura morta in Italia, Milan 1989, II, p. 946,
fig. 1149
L. Salerno, Nuovi studi sulla natura morta, Rome 1989, p.
119, fig. 113