Giuseppe Recco (attr.)

Lot description

Still life with fish, cuttlefish and sea urchins oil on canvas, cm. 73x99; in a fine period gilt and carved wood frame On a rocky surface in front of a coastal landscape at sunset appears a rich composition of fish of various species (some collected in a basket), cuttlefish and sea urchins. The light is concentrated on the foreground, isolating the elements in a highly selective, grazing light. The rendering of the humid surfaces, the shiny scales and the soft flesh of the cuttlefish, as well as the minute description of the sea urchins, consistently refers to Giuseppe Recco's specialization in the genre of marine still life, in particular in compositions with fish and crustaceans. The most stringent comparison is with the "Still life with cuttlefish, fish, lobster and basket of oysters" of the Municipal Art Gallery of Faenza, dated between 1680 and 1695: we find similar typologies of subjects (fish, cuttlefish, seafood), similar setting on a lowered plane with a dark background and above all a pictorial writing characterized by short and vibrating touches that riddle the fish with tiny lights creating a very dense luminous texture on the surfaces, one of the most recognizable features of Recco. The quality of the drafting, the coherence with the language of the painter, trained in a family specialized in still lifes with fish and kitchens and already recognized in the eighteenth century as one of the greatest exponents of Neapolitan still life alongside Giovanni Battista Ruoppolo, and the close affinity with the Faenza canvas, unanimously accepted as autograph, significantly support the attribution of the present work to Giuseppe Recco and suggest a dating in full maturity, between the Seventies and Eighties of the seventeenth century.