Nicola Maria Recco

Nicola Maria Recco (17th-18th century) Still Life with Fish Oil on canvas, 96.5 X 111 cm Frame: 115 x 128 cm The still life presented here is part of the trend that developed in Naples during the seventeenth century and continued into the following century. Among the various subjects, such as flowers, food, fruits, or musical instruments, used and revisited over the decades by various exponents of the Neapolitan school, there were also paintings with a purely ichthyic theme, set in markets, fishmongers, or, as in this case, along coastal landscapes, thus further accentuating the realism already inherent in the genre through a plausible and concrete contextualization. In particular, among the many exponents of the genre present in the Neapolitan city, we find similarities and coincidences, especially from the point of view of the layout and arrangement of the various elements, with the production of Nicola Maria Recco, one of the twelve children of Giuseppe Recco (1634-1695), namely one of the most illustrious representatives of Neapolitan still life. Following in his father's footsteps, as did Elena, another daughter of Giuseppe, he specialized in still life, however developing a preference for representations of fish, crustaceans and molluscs, which abound in his production and of which the painting described here shows us a wide repertoire: the clams in the lower right, the gilt-head bream, the threadfin needlefish, the gurnards with warm and bright colors, the lobster still alive moving on the stones, the small crabs clinging to the rock where a young herring gull, as can be seen from the greyish plumage, holds its small prey in its beak. The iridescent colors of the fish stand out against a cloudy and dark background, along which unfolds a low rocky coast that ends with a steep promontory in the distance. The more blurred brushstrokes and the more approximate and vague contours of the landscape backdrop contrast with the minute details of the foreground, enhanced by the evident highlights on the scales of the fish or on the shells of the crabs, as is also noted, even with greater intensity, in the other fish-themed still lifes of the author. This particular arrangement, which leaves room for the landscape element, is found in the other works of Nicola Maria Recco, with fish and molluscs in the foreground, often placed to the side and not in the center, and behind them the marine landscape, rendered with a more generic clarity compared to the lenticular details of the still life. Although the information on the painter is less than that of his father, we know that he worked mostly in Naples and that he was able to collect his father's legacy in the choice of subjects and the pictorial genre, although in a more vibratile form through the iridescent and contrasting colors and the highlights; moreover, the clear choice of an outdoor setting, with glimpses that complete and expand the subject, defines his figure as a still life artist thanks to a compositional originality different and distinct from that of his father and contemporary colleagues active in the city.