Offered by Brozzetti Antichità
Francesco Lavagna (Naples 1684-1724)
Pair of paintings depicting Still Life composition of flowers and watermelon and garden in the background
The paintings, beautifully made and in good condition, depict sumptuous compositions of flowers and fruits in elegant gardens. Attributable to the Neapolitan painter Francesco Lavagna, they present compositional and stylistic analogies with certain and signed works of the painter.
In our collection we also propose another painting attributed to the Blackboard and the same size, replaceable at will in the couple.
In the painting proposed here on the left, in the foreground and in the backlight is placed a gushing fountain crowned by the sculpture of a raptor with open wings. Some wild plants grow around her. At the center of the canvas, in an apparent random arrangement, lie two triumphs of flowers, characterized by bright colors in shades of magenta and carmine reds, with notes of blue and white white. On the ground, the flowers emerge from an inverted wicker basket resting on a white porcelain cup threaded in blue. To the side are a watermelon cut in half, a yellow melon, some figs and a bunch of grapes. Immediately behind, placed on a low wall that acts as a fifth, there is a wicker basket with great floral decoration and a copper vase with globular body and large flared and embossed neck. The scene leaves ample space to the description of the surrounding environment: it is a formal garden, or Italian, characterized by a geometric subdivision of the spaces obtained with the use of hedges and plant sculptures obtained by pruning evergreen bushes, geometric mirrors of water, often combined with architectural elements such as fountains and statues. You can see two large topiary in boxwood, arched, with a small fountain in the center circular section. In addition to this fence, a fifth of trees stands out on a blue sky, in which there are some fluffy clouds.
The painting proposed on the right, of similar composition and workmanship, is distinguished by a watermelon in the foreground, some objects in white porcelain adorned with blue surrounded by compositions of flowers that lie on the ground and on architectural elements. On the right a large terracotta vase is placed ahead of a portion of the wall in addition to which a tree creates a fifth to the scene. In the background a peacock, with a characteristic long coloured tail, sits from the back to the observer. Then you can see a gushing fountain and a balustrade that, cut from the composition, suggests the continuity of the spaces in addition to what is depicted. Branches of trees in the distance delimit the horizon.
Clearly belonging to the Neapolitan school, the canvas shows undisputed analogies with the style of the painter Francesco Lavagna (1684-1724). It is one of the protagonists of Neapolitan naturamortism of the early eighteenth century. The eighteenth-century Neapolitan, in the field of still life, is much appreciated and sought after today by both the antique market and critics. It was appreciated and much requested in the past by the great collectors and patrons, rich lords owners of the most beautiful buildings of Naples and surroundings. Today it is still under study, and Francesco Lavagna himself has very little information. Many artists have ventured into naturamortism and their figures are slowly emerging from oblivion, allowing critics to outline their stylistic characteristics, grouping corpus of works under some names mainly thanks to the discovery of signed works.
It is still very difficult to distinguish the hand of some painters such as Giuseppe and Francesco Lavagna and Gaspare Lopez. The same works appear in catalogues and in the antique market sometimes attributed to one, sometimes to the other artist.
Francesco Lavagna, as mentioned, is active in Naples in the first half of the 18th century. He is often confused with Gaspare Lopez and Giuseppe Lavagna, probably linked to him by a bond of kinship, and also an interpreter of the same pictorial genre.
The canvases document very well the expressive qualities of Francesco Lavagna, able to create works never banal and full of a descriptive ability, of remarkable visual impact, in the rendering of the effects of light, color and matter, characterized by a fine and meticulous brushstroke.
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