Michele Antonio Rapos (Italy 1733-1819) - Still life with a triumph of flowe

Michele Antonio Rapos (Italy 1733-1819), Still life with a triumph of flowers

The canvas, of fine workmanship and under good conditions of maintenance, represents a still life with triumph of flowers and fruits placed in an open space. At the centre of the canvas, on a stone base with a moulded and square section, is placed a vase whose decoration in low relief, with anthropomorphic figures, transpires from a lush and refined composition of flowers. A rose and a peony, escaped the composition, soft seem hardly to touch the ground.
On the right, in the foreground, is a vase, around which runs a flower garland. On the left, inside a wicker basket, is described a generous composition of fruit: bunches of white grapes, some peaches, and some pears lie on the ground.
In the background, an ochre stone wall surrounds the scene and on the left a circular vase is decorated with a plant with red leaves. Still beyond, some luxuriant plants serve as a fifth to the subject, letting shine a cerulean sky, marked by some vaporous clouds. In the foreground, on the left, frames the scene a vase with a square section, placed against the light, and decorated with some pears. The area of shade is harmoniously balanced on the right by some flowering plants which, naturally sprouted, emerge in the sun from a dark area in front of the wall. The composition of the canvas, elegant and balanced, has a strong scenography impact and a great decorative effect.
Stylistically, the work can be attributed to the illustrious still-life painter Michele Antonio Rapos (or Raposo, not Rapous, as many erroneously write, distorting its name to French). Rapos was certainly the best author of still life in Piedmont, Italy, between the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Much appreciated by the Savoy court and the local nobility, the artist is present in the main court residences and in numerous palaces and private castles throughout Piedmont.

Michele Antonio Rapos was born in Turin (Italy) in 1733, to Giuseppe Antonio and Anna Teresa Chiaravelli, and died there in 1819. Brother of Vittorio Amedeo, also an important court painter, specializes in the genre of still lifes gaining success at the Savoy court from which he receives commissions for the Royal Palace of Venaria Reale, of Stupinigi, for the Royal Palace of Turin.

The still lifes of Rapos have particular characteristics that make them easily identifiable: among the fruits stand out bunches of grapes, peaches, plums, pears, sometimes pomegranates, melons and figs; among the flowers, often collected in large monumental vases, you can admire delicate roses, fluffy peonies, carnations and tulips. The architectural and decorative elements, among which the vases or with bas-relief and porcelain elements, are inspired by the great models of the French tradition, in the style of Louis XV. Rapos interprets the Rococo Piedmontese taste with grace and decorative gracefulness, manifesting to know the French still-life painters of the eighteenth century, such as Jean-Baptiste Blain de Fontenay, François de Cuvilliés and Alexandre-François Desporte. His first still lifes, dating back to around 1755, still have late-horned results, dark backgrounds, lush nature, landscapes wrapped in darkness, from which emerge flowers and fruits, decorative elements.
In the canvas presented here, dating from about 1780, the dark leaves of the fifth to the scene and in the shade in the foreground, make more suggestive the composition, in which the flowers and fruits stand out with colours, lively and harmonious, tuned mainly in the range of red, from vermilion to scarlet, white and blue. Characteristic of the artist is the use of a delicate brush stroke and the velvety fruit yield, particularly evident in the description of grapes and peaches. The work, of great pictorial quality, belongs to the important commissions of the artist, who paints many paintings of similar structure for a private collection that loved to adorn palaces and residences in Turin. Some significant examples of works stylistically close to the canvases in question are reported in this study.

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