Baldassarre di Caro

BALDASSARRE DI CARO (Naples, 1689-1750).
"Still life with birds".
Oil on canvas.
Attributed by Nicola Spinosa.
Measurements: 39 x 52,5 cm; 49 x 65 cm (frame).

Baldassarre di Caro was one of the great masters of the still life in the Naples of the first half of the XVIII century. A disciple of Andrea Belvedere and heir to the Baroque tradition developed by artists such as Paolo Porpora, he was able to elevate the still life genre to a pictorial language of extraordinary sophistication. His style is distinguished by a vibrant brushstroke, an intense material richness and a compositional sense that gives the objects depicted an almost aristocratic dignity.

In this work, the arrangement of the game birds, treated with a marked chiaroscuro and an enveloping atmosphere, fully reflects the Neapolitan sensibility of the period: luminous dramatism, refined naturalism and an elegance that transcends the purely descriptive. The scene combines the immediacy of the everyday with a subtle sense of theatricality, characteristic of the late Baroque in southern Italy.

Of particular relevance to the collector is the attribution made by Nicola Spinosa, director emeritus of the Museo di Capodimonte and one of the leading international authorities on Neapolitan Baroque painting. An attribution signed by Spinosa constitutes an academic endorsement of the first order and considerably reinforces the interest and value of the work on the market.