Follower of Giuseppe Recco

Italian school of the seventeenth century. Follower of GIUSEPPE RECCO (Naples, 1634 - Alicante, 1695).
"Composition with ram's head".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Measurements: 46 x 73 cm; 66.5 x 94 cm (frame).

This painting belongs to the Neapolitan environment of the seventeenth century, and can be placed within the circle of Giuseppe Recco, one of the most eminent representatives of the Italian Baroque still life. In this still life, the treatment of light, which falls on the organic surfaces of the fruit and the sausage, as well as on the fur of the ram's head, generates a tenebrist atmosphere of notable contrast, characteristic of the late Caravaggism that so influenced Neapolitan painting.

Giuseppe Recco's training was linked to his family, who were also engaged in painting. It is believed that his artistic education began in Lombardy. His work is characterized by a naturalistic language, linked to tenebrism and hallmarks of color, especially focused on the theme of still life, in which he explored a great multiplicity of elements. Throughout his artistic career, he worked for numerous Spanish nobles and vierres who were in Naples; this work led him to be requested by Charles II, however, he died on the trip to Spain. ighly appreciated within the antiquarian market, as well as among collectors and art historians, the Neapolitan still life school of the Baroque enjoyed a spectacular development, leaving behind the splendors of the sixteenth century and progressing within a fully Baroque and clearly identifiable style. Artists such as Tommaso Realfonso, Nicola Casissa, Gaspare Lopez, Giacomo Nani and Baldassare de Caro continued the local tradition by specializing in the painting of flowers, fruits, fish and game, thus satisfying the demand of a vast clientele characterized by a new taste typical of the 17th century. To these authors must also be added the minor figures, who are slowly emerging from an unjust oblivion, and some artists who worked between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Francesco della Questa, Aniello Ascione, Nicola Malinconico, Gaetano Cusati, Onofrio Loth, Elena and Nicola Maria Recco, Giuseppe Ruoppolo and Andrea Belvedere. These Neapolitan still life painters, who worked during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, are called "i generisti", and were important not only within their own environment but also, and especially, in Spain, where the development of the genre was clearly marked by Italian influence, specifically by the contribution of the Neapolitan school.