GIUSEPPE RECCO | Still life of anemones, tulips, dahlias and other flowers in a glass vase

With Fabio Massimo Megna, Rome.

Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, La natura morta italiana da Caravaggio al Settecento, 26 June-12 October 2003 (no numbers);
Turin, Fondazione Accorsi, L'incantesimo dei sensi: una collezione di nature morte del Seicento per il Museo Accorsi, 30 November 2005 - 1 May 2006, no. 14.

A. Cottino, in Il Seicento, exhibition catalogue, Turin 1992, under cat. no. 11, reproduced;
T. Scarpa in, La natura morta italiana da Caravaggio al Settecento, exhibition catalogue, Florence 2003, p. 212, reproduced;
A. Cottino, L'Incantesimo dei sensi, Una collezione di nature morte del Seicento per il Museo Accorsi, exhibition catalogue, Turin 2005, pp. 70-71, 107, cat. no. 14, reproduced.

The original canvas has been relined and the surface has been slightly pressed. The detail in flowers has been generally very well retained and coloration remains bright and vivid. There is some thinness in the blue vase and the blue flower at lower center, between the daffodil and tulip. There is an overall craquelure pattern, but this is not distracting. Under ultraviolet light: there are scattered retouches in background and stone ledge, but only a few very small ones in flowers. Painting can be hung as is and presents a very attractive image. Offered in a carved and gilt wood frame.
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Giuseppe Recco was a member of an artistic dynasty of still life painters in Naples which included his uncles, Giacomo and Giovan Battista (though Giacomo is sometimes listed as his father), and his two children, Elena and Nicola Maria.  In the last decades of the 17^th century, Giuseppe was the most celebrated Neapolitan still life painter, depicting a variety of subjects including flowers, fish, kitchen utensils and musical instruments.  This sumptuous and vividly colored array of spring flowers has been dated as a mature work by Cottini and Scarpa (see Literature), and clearly reflects an awareness of Flemish still life painting, such as the work of Abraham Brueghel who resided in Naples from 1675 until his death in 1697.