Nicola Casissa

Painting, oil on canvas, measuring 74 x 108 cm without frame and 93 x 125 cm with a wonderful contemporary frame, depicting a still life "in pose" with flowers, fruit and mushrooms by the painter Nicola Casissa (Naples 1680 – 1731). This dazzling still life in pose demonstrates the richness and scenographic quality that such images reached in Naples in the late Baroque period: we know from inventories how the genre of still life reached unapproachable peaks. This delicate canvas, of exquisite workmanship and appreciable for its excellent state of conservation, shows us clear influences of the work of Andrea Belvedere, that is, the one who carries Brueghel's inventions into the Neapolitan eighteenth century, giving his compositions a brilliance and grace that had not yet appeared. The differences from Belvedere and all of the seventeenth century with this canvas are the cascading floral bouquet, in the brightened palette and in the fractured brushstrokes that form the petals of the white hydrangeas in the middle of the canvas; here we are witnessing an evolution compared to the naturalism of previous authors, where the various elements emerged from a dark background with a sharp light that turned the volumes of fruit or flowers. In our canvas we find a greater complexity, namely a landscape in the background and a copper vase from which the flowers fall, on the left we find a melon, peaches and small porcini mushrooms. Studying the way to compose the canvas, to use such delicate and vivid colors and the figurative poetics of the whole, we can only mention the name of the talented painter Nicola Casissa (1680 – 1731). Looking at this extraordinary work we can only see a compact and dense en plein air composition where the brush of our artist becomes faster but always descriptive with an intense dynamism that seems to animate the composition itself with a strong sense of decorativeness and pomp with iridescent tones of red, blue, really successful and energetic white. Analyzing the bright palette, the sophisticated use of light that meanders crackling between petals and stems, the frivolous rococo of the depiction, I can only think of a rather early dating of this work in the activity of Casissa, therefore around 1700 or very early years following. The paintings and art objects published here are my exclusive property and consequently are always available to be viewed in person, by appointment, at my exhibition venues located in Sanremo and Brescia. The work, like every object of ours, is sold accompanied by a photographic FIMA certificate of authenticity and lawful origin; this document identifies the object, adding value to the item. We personally handle and organize the packaging and shipping of works of art with insurance worldwide. Dr. Riccardo Moneghini Art Historian