GIUSEPPE RECCO | An elaborate still life of various fruits, including pomegranates, grapes, melons, peaches, plums, and pears

Morandotti collection, Rome.

F. Zeri, "Andrea De Lione e la Natura Morta," in Scritti di storia dell'arte in onore di Raffaello Causa, Naples 1988, p. 205.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work has not been recently restored and is visibly dirty. The old lining on the canvas is still supporting the paint layer well. There is a restoration in the plate beneath the pears in the center of the left side and this old restoration has developed some instability. There is an unrestored loss here, but this is not original pigment that is lost, but rather a result of instability to the restoration. There is another restored structural damage in the plums in the same plate as the pears and above that in the background there is a small repair. There are a few isolated losses that have been retouched. Some thinness in the shadows and also weakness in the dark green watermelon on the far right have received some retouches. There is an area in the green melon in the center of the right side which has some kind of an inscription, perhaps some initials, which is rectangular and may be a later repair. Overall the condition is very good. This is certainly a work that would respond well to cleaning.
"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."

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.  This sumptuous and vividly colored array of fruits 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. We are grateful to Professor Alberto Cottino for endorsing this attribution on the basis of photographs and for his assistance with the cataloguing of this lot.  He dates this work likely to the 1660s.