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Elena Recco (Napoli, 1654 - Madrid, 1715)
Still life of fish, 17th century
oil on canvas
40 cm x 48 cm, in a 52 cm x 60 cm frame
Present Expert Report by Prof. Strinati.
"The Still Life of Fish (oil on canvas, 37 x 47 cm, framed 50 x 62) is a work that fits well into the production of Elena Recco, a distinguished painter specializing in this genre, daughter of the great Neapolitan master Giuseppe Recco and active for a long time alongside her father (as well as her little-known brother Nicola Maria) between Naples and the Royal Court of Spain, where she moved, following her father, towards the end of the seventeenth century and where she remained for a long time, honored with very important and primary commissions.
"The Still Life of Fish (oil on canvas, 37 x 47 cm, framed 50 x 62) is a work that fits well into the production of Elena Recco, a distinguished painter specializing in this genre, daughter of the great Neapolitan master Giuseppe Recco and active for a long time alongside her father (as well as her little-known brother Nicola Maria) between Naples and the Royal Court of Spain, where she moved, following her father, towards the end of the seventeenth century and where she remained for a long time, honored with very important and primary commissions.
Based on the known and documented biography of Recco (Naples 1654, Madrid 1715), the painting under examination here, stylistically and materially, appears to me to be certainly datable to the first decade of the 18th century, the most mature phase of the illustrious artist's production. I reach this conclusion by comparing our work primarily with several paintings from the ancient Orsini collection in Gravina di Puglia (now completely dispersed among various owners), which indeed included truly remarkable fish still lifes by Elena Recco, although inventories sometimes erroneously list them under the name of her great father Giuseppe.
In this regard, I would like to report, as a case study of great historical and artistic interest, a Still Life of Fish, extremely similar to ours, published by Lucio Galante, in La Natura Morta in Italia, second volume, Electa Milan 1989, p. 971, no. 1183, under the name of Giuseppe Recco but in reality an absolute masterpiece by his daughter Elena.
Recco specialized greatly in the genre of fish painting, and our painting appears very significant for the artist's typical and distinctive method of mixing the images of fish as if they had been thrown in disorder on the fishmonger's counter, waiting to be distributed to the various customers and patrons.
The pictorial material in our case is thick and full-bodied, and this too is a distinctive element that characterizes the production of this great painter, who deserves a place of her own, and absolute prominence, in the great and lofty history of still life painting in Naples between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I conclude by noting the very good state of preservation of the painting under consideration here, thus confirming its intrinsically high quality. I therefore estimate the painting, in relation to current international market conditions, at €18,000.00 (eighteen thousand).
Sincerely, Claudio Strinati "