Francesco Lavagna (naples, 1684 - 1749), Still Life With Flowers

Francesco Lavagna (Naples, 1684 - 1749)

Still life with flowers

Oil on canvas, cm 62 x 48

Frame 66 x 81

The still life with flowers under consideration can be compared to the production of the Neapolitan painter Francesco Lavagna (Naples, 1684 - 1749). There are few documents about the artist, often confused with Giuseppe Lavagna, with whom he almost certainly shares a relationship of parentage, mentioned by the biographer of painters, Neapolitan sculptors and architects Bernardo de Dominici as a pupil of the great painter Andrea Belvedere. Francesco became a painter in a style close to Gaspare Lopez (?- Naples 1732 ca), important painter of Neapolitan still lifes. Since Lopez is recorded among the students of the school of Andrea Belvedere, some scholars believe that even without documentary support but based on stylistic analysis of the works, Francesco Lavagna’s training course may have been the same. The figure of Lavagna was recently reconstructed thanks to two paintings passed in the antique market at the beginning of the eighties, one of which signed in clear "Fran.° Board P". These works have then allowed, thanks to the many stylistic references with canvas appeared on the market, to reconstruct, still partially, the artist’s production history, which is an elegant interpreter of the new pictorial trend of Neapolitan still life, closer to the French taste, more decorative and imaginative.

Lavagna favors compositions formed by waterfalls of flowers and fruits, usually set outdoors, accompanied by vases, jugs, ancient ruins, statues of female figures and animals. Another of the painter’s distinctive features is the addition of ceramics with delicate azzurrina color, not only a chromatic expedient for the decorative purpose but also a testimony of the refined taste for artisanal production that arrived in large ports such as Naples. 
In this canvas the painter offers a particularly vivid and peculiar piece of a vase of flowers, colorful and arranged with apparent randomness; among them you can recognize large roses, white carnations and lilac with frayed petals, white little bells and tulips. The chromatic score based on the soft colors of the blue, green and pink, with flashes of red meant refers to other examples of the production of the painter Neapolitan, as well as the delicate blue vase. 

The object is in good condition