Neapolitan School, 18th century, Vase of flowers on a marble base

Neapolitan School, 18th century Vase of flowers on a marble base Oil on canvas, 54 x 73 cm With frame, 64 x 83 cm The still life depicts, foreshortened from below, a metal vase on a stone base with a riot of flowers of different species against a completely dark background. The connection with the Neapolitan school can be found in the production of painters such as Francesco Lavagna (1684 – 1749) or Gaspare Lopez (1677-1732). Lavagna possesses a style particularly close to that of Gaspare Lopez, an important artist responsible for the execution of marvelous still lifes in the Neapolitan area, so much so that, although documentary sources are not sufficient to trace the apprenticeship of the former with absolute certainty, it is believed that even Lopez's master, Andrea Belvedere, can be considered the same. It should also be noted that the lenticular attention in rendering the petals recalls Flemish examples, such as that of Abraham Brueghel (1631-1697), a painter descended from an illustrious dynasty who traveled to Italy, touching Rome and also Naples, where many painters were able to admire his examples, including Belvedere. Other foreign artists who influenced the work of Neapolitan colleagues in the first decades of the eighteenth century were Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer and Jean Baptiste Gayot Dubuisson who transmitted a decorative, rich and elegant taste in the Neapolitan environment as a declination of the French style. The foreshortening from below, the floral taste declined in the multiple species, the same shape and material of the vase finds correspondence in the works of the two Neapolitan painters, although the dark environment and poorly lit by a light off-screen makes the tones different, more vibrant and changing thanks to the chiaroscuro, highlighted on the surface of the petals. In general we can note how in this work the composition refers to that of the early eighteenth century Neapolitan, influenced by the more ornamental compositions of the French school, while the tones, the chiaroscuro, the dark setting and the strong realism of the floral elements refer above all to a still life closer to that realism that had characterized the Neapolitan still life in the previous century, namely that of Giuseppe Recco (1634-1695), Giovanni Battista Ruoppolo (1629-1693) or Paolo Porpora (1617-1673). The unity of the school from a cultural point of view allowed a constant and common evolution that did not exclude influences from abroad and that held in high regard the teachings of the masters of a past that was still very close, ensuring a line of continuity between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in this pictorial genre until arriving at Lavagna and Lopez.