Nicola Casissa (? – Naples, 1731), Still Life With A Vase Of Flowers

Nicola Casissa (? – Naples, 1731)

Still Life with a Vase of Flowers

Oil on panel, 30 cm in diameter

With frame, 42 cm in diameter

Artistic analysis by Prof. Alberto Crispo

This small tondo, oil on panel depicting a glass vase filled with flowers resting on a stone base, is a fully-fledged part of the body of work attributed to Nicola Casissa, a Neapolitan painter active between the late 17th century and the early decades of the 18th century. The composition, exquisitely decorative in style, features a colorful bouquet in which one can recognize anemones with velvety petals, tulips with arched profiles and fiery hues, a carnation with jagged edges, a gently reclining rose with a soft, flowing form, and a few sprigs of orange blossoms and hyacinths, which enliven the upper part of the composition with their lightness. The transparent vase, resting on a barely sketched stone surface, reveals through the glass the intertwined stems of the flowers, in accordance with a compositional approach favored by many Neapolitan still-life painters of the period. The attribution to Nicola Casissa is confirmed by comparison with other autograph works by the artist. One need only consider a still life signed “NCf” (Nicola Casissa fecit), which came up for auction in 1986 and again in 1998, in which flowers entirely analogous to those present here recur, characterized by the same arched stems and rounded contours, as well as a reclining rose that is virtually identical to the one in our painting. Similar stylistic affinities can be found in another round panel, which appeared at auction in Genoa in 2011, and which shares with the panel presented here the same free brushwork and the same chromatic sensibility. Sources provide few but significant details about Nicola Casissa. He was a pupil of Andrea Belvedere, and his training under the famous master is clearly evident in his early paintings. As Bernardo De Dominici writes: “Nicola Casissa brought great honor to his master, and his early works closely resemble those of the Abbot; but over time, he varied his manner and developed his own style, particularly in his depictions of flowers, in which he rendered the leaves more luxuriant and incorporated a mixture of other hues.” The 18th-century biographer also notes his longevity, his popularity among the “Dilettanti,” and his extensive list of patrons, which allowed him to adorn the homes of numerous Neapolitan citizens.

Casissa thus stands out as a refined interpreter of the Neapolitan floral tradition, alongside figures such as Gaspare Lopez and Francesco Lavagna, developing a personal pictorial language in the rocaille style, based on a free and fluid brushwork that prioritizes chromatic and luminous effects over botanical precision. Works attributed to him, in addition to those in private collections already mentioned, are now also housed in major cultural institutions, such as the Museum of Still Life in Poggio a Caiano, the Civic Museums of Pesaro, and the Chamber of Deputies in Rome, bearing witness to the critical and collector’s acclaim the artist has enjoyed over time—an acclaim that this previously unpublished tondo further enriches.