Luca Forte

A. Cottino, 'Sull'asse Roma-Napoli: idee, legami e relazioni per la natura morta', in Paragone, LVIII, no. 71, Jan. 2007, pp. 3-10; reproduced plate 1, and the detail of the signature reproduced plate 2;
A. Cottino, Natura silente, Turin 2007, p.69, reproduced plate 55.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is unlined, with a strip lining to support the edges and two tiny silk patches behind small knocks at the left side. The canvas is otherwise quite thick and strong, and there is a recent stretcher. The restoration is also recent. The craquelure is fairly marked, and there are one or two places where it is flattened, for instance near the centre of the top edge where a fairly small knock has been retouched. The two tiny patched knocks mentioned above have been well integrated in the side of the lighter fruit among the grapes on the left and just below. There are one or two other small retouchings by the apple in the centre right foreground, but there has been minimal accidental damage. Apart from little lines of retouching to mute the craquelure in the central fruit there appears only to be some light strengthening on the left end of the ledge, with more in the background stones between the grapes, where the leafy vegetation also seems blanched. The central darks have been worn in the past, and a film of older varnish has wisely been left there, however in the foreground the shadows and depths of colour in the darks have been beautifully preserved. There are a few little minor retouchings near the base corners, but the apples in the foreground are magnificently strong and unworn. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This beautiful unlined canvas, signed on the reverse, is a characteristic work by Luca Forte, one of the leading still life painters in the first half of the Neapolitan seicento. Little is known of the artist's life but he is recorded as a witness to Aniello Falcone's wedding in 1639 and it is in Falcone's studio that he is thought to have trained, along with Recco and Porpora. His early development is also thought to owe much to contemporary still-life painters in Rome such as Crescenzi and Salini, and to the work of Spanish artists, especially Blas de Ledesma and Juan van der Hamen. In Paragone, Cottino (see Literature) does not rule out a possible visit to Rome by Forte. He makes explicit this potential link to Roman painting by comparing the present canvas to the work of the Master of the Acquavella Still Life, one of Caravaggio's closest followers in Rome. However, it is hard to put forward a clear chronology for his oeuvre, all the more so since so few of his works are signed or dated.

The artist has carefully laid out the different still-life elements, and each is given its own role in the overall composition. Form and depth are created through the delicate play of light and shade, pointing to the Caravaggesque influences in the artist's approach. Whilst the Still life with Fruit, Crystal Cups and Tuberose in the Galleria Corsini in Rome¹, carried out early in his career, is still heavily indebted to Caravaggio's still life in the Ambrosiana,² in the present work we are faced with an artist at least in his early maturity.

The fine details of the work stand out: the freshness of the grapes is felt through the light that bounces off them; the little worm holes and contours of the apples add texture to the work. The sumptuously laid bunches of grapes which spill over the ledge, as well as the polished surface of the apples, recur in Forte's signed Still life with Fruit in the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.³ The detailed fruits laid out over a stone ledge with the light which comes into the composition from the left can also be compared with another signed work from Forte's maturity, probably his masterpiece, in the Molinari Pradelli Collection.⁴


1. See J. Spike, Italian Still Life Paintings, exhibition catalogue, Florence 1983, p. 56, reproduced fig. 18.
2. See A. Ottino Della Chiesa, Caravaggio, Milan 1967, p. 91, cat. no. 31, reproduced in colour plates XVI-XVII.
3. See, Spike, op. cit., p. 60, cat. no. 17, reproduced in colour p. 61.
4. See M. Gregori, La Natura morta italiana da Caravaggio al settecento, exhibition catalogue, Rome 2002, p. 195, reproduced in colour.