Neapolitan School of the seventeenth century. Circle of GIOVANNI BATTISTA RUOPPOLO (Naples, 1629 - 1693). Still life with fruits. Oil on canvas.

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Nov 3, 2021

Set Reminder 2021-11-03 08:00:00 2021-11-03 08:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : OLD MASTERS https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/setdart-auction-house/old-masters-7786
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• Lot Description
  Neapolitan School of the seventeenth century. Circle of GIOVANNI BATTISTA RUOPPOLO (Naples, 1629 - 1693). Still life with fruits. Oil on canvas. Measurements: 100'5 x 47 cm.; 112'5 x 59 cm. (frame). The painter has arranged on an elongated surface a ceramic plate full of figs, around which other fruits are distributed. Pomegranates, peaches and some flowers complete the composition. The fruits, painted with meticulousness and realism, with warm reddish and orange tones, as well as some violet tones, are softly illuminated by a frontal spotlight external to the composition. This lighting, somewhat theatrical, makes them stand out against a practically monochrome, earthy-toned background. Both the composition and the treatment of light and color allow us to inscribe this piece in the Neapolitan school of the seventeenth century, and to attribute it, more specifically, to Giovanni Battista Ruoppolo. This painter, a disciple of Paolo Porpora (1617-1673) dedicated a good part of his career to the painting of still lifes, a genre that was born in Baroque times, reaching great popularity. Although it was not the pictorial genre most appreciated by scholars and academics, always interested in painting history, mythology or religious themes, bourgeois and aristocrats throughout Europe, but especially in Flanders, the Netherlands, Spain and southern Italy, were extraordinarily attracted by the painting of objects of everyday reality, which they commissioned to decorate their rooms. Fruits and flowers, sometimes accompanied by game, ornamental objects (ceramic, glass or metal pieces, watches, jewelry) and books became the protagonists of splendid compositions that sometimes reach a high degree of verism and sometimes conceal a symbolic meaning, reflections on the passage of time, life and death or even religious questions. Still life presents, in the different territories in which it is cultivated, particular characteristics. In the case of Naples, it is a genre linked to painting derived from Caravaggio and also, to a large extent, to the school of the Spanish Golden Age. It is thus characterized by its formal restraint compared to the Flemish still life, with dark backgrounds, which give a certain aura of mystery to the composition, and a violent, theatrical lighting. Giovanni Battista Ruoppolo presents, in his youth, to which the present work could belong, a marked inclination towards the "tenebrist", "caravaggist" treatment of light, although he would later evolve towards more decorative compositions.
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