Elena Recco (Active between the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century), Still life of fish

Elena Recco (Active between the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century)

Still life of fish

Oil on canvas, 48 x 62 cm; with frame 60 x 74 cm

Daughter and pupil of Giuseppe, Elena Recco successfully attempted still life, following her father's themes and preferring marine iconography in particular. There is no precise information about her career, Bernardo de' Dominici (1683-1759) in his “Vite de' pittori, scultori, ed architetti napoletani” (III, Naples 1742-44, p. 297), in the appendix to the life of Giuseppe Recco, provides some data. The biographer mentions Elena's transfer to Spain and her presence in Madrid in 1695, following the Countess of Santo Stefano, who had moved there at the end of her husband's term as Viceroy of Naples. We do not know how long her stay in the Spanish capital lasted, but she executed some works there, as documented in a 1794 inventory of the Buen Retiro Palace, where some floral canvases attributed to her are cited.

The painting analyzed here constitutes an interesting testimony to be placed alongside the best and typical production made by Elena Recco, as underlined in the book Nature morte del Seicento e del Settecento (Edited by Patrizia Consigli Valente, Parma, 1987, pp. 10-11). The arrangement of the fish in the foreground, through an abundant construction, is found in some of her most successful essays. The composition under analysis fully reflects the distinctive characteristics of Recco's production: the support surface contains the exposed catch, immersed in a muted but diffused light coming from the landscape behind. The fish in the foreground present the peculiar characteristics of her works: the particular pink, greenish and grey-blue hues of the scales, combined with a sparkling vitality of the freshly caught prey, which shine with silvery reflections, denouncing their vitality, expressed by the brightness of the eyes, large and open, and by the contortions of the bodies.