Neapolitan Recco Workshop, Still Life With Fish, Attributed To Elena Recco

A splendid oil on canvas depicting a still life with a catch of fish and a copper jug in the background; the group of fish in the foreground is skillfully illuminated by atmospheric light, which—as evidenced by the cobalt-blue sky—suggests that night is falling over the scene.

The painting analyzed here constitutes an interesting example to be considered alongside Elena Recco’s more typical and finest works, as highlighted in the book *Nature morte del Seicento e del Settecento* (edited by Patrizia Consigli Valente, Parma, 1987, pp. 10–11). The arrangement of the fish in the foreground, achieved through a rich composition, is found in some of her most successful works. The composition under analysis fully embodies the distinctive characteristics of Recco’s work: the tabletop holds the displayed catch, bathed in a subdued yet diffused light emanating from the landscape behind. The fish in the foreground exhibit the distinctive features of her works: the distinctive pink, greenish, and blue-gray hues of the scales, combined with the sparkling vitality of the freshly caught prey, which glisten with silvery reflections, revealing their liveliness through the brilliance of their large, wide-open eyes and the contortions of their bodies.

The painting is in excellent condition and is mounted on a beautiful gilded and carved 19th-century frame. The dimensions of the canvas are: 70 x 46; the dimensions including the frame are 84 x 59.

Elena Recco: A Neapolitan painter active between the late 17th century and the early 18th century. She belonged to a well-known dynasty of painters, the most famous of whom was her father, Giuseppe Recco, a highly regarded genre painter. A sought-after painter and creator of high-quality works, she was invited to the Spanish Court, where she resided for extended periods and where some of her canvases depicting floral subjects are preserved. But Elena’s favorite subject was marine iconography. With vivid realism and a skillful use of light, she depicted crustaceans, corals, and fish of various shapes and colors; the silvery and gray-blue reflections of the scales, the darting twists of the bodies, the distinctive pinkish hue of the scales, combined with the sparkling vitality of the freshly caught prey that exude the dampness of the sea, are her hallmark. Signed works are rare. His paintings can be found in Spain, at the Zarzuela complex; in the Warsaw Museum; at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow; at the City Art Gallery in Leeds; and in private collections.