Circle Of Pietro Neri Scacciati (florence, 1684-1749), Living Nature

Circle of Pietro Neri Scacciati (Florence, 1684-1749)
Living nature with backyard and birds
Oil on canvas, cm 77,5 x 113
With frame, cm 98 x 123.5

The Italian painting school developed from the 16th century a particular predilection for a sincere naturamortism that investigated with heartfelt vividness and naturalistic virtuosity those subjects traditionally found in the repertoire of drawing; Living nature of animals thus set, preferentially, creatures of the undergrowth, courtyard and pastoral. The feverishly tactile processing of the pictorial material had encouraged an ever greater preference for alignment with the trends then coming from the Flemish countries that, agreed to Vandychian suggestions, found fertile ground especially in the city of Genoa.
The present painting is a happy ornithological parenthesis, symptomatic of the artist’s skillful perfectionism in portraying each animal. A subtle pigmentation gives fine highlights to the individual feathers of birds, enlivened by an exceptionally bright and vivid eye. In addition to the domestic cock at the centre of the composition, whose breed is recognizable in the "Livorno golden neck", with flaming purslane and crest of the type called carnation, it is possible to distinguish a mallard - in the dark green head duck with white collar, as well as common hens, a black Padova hen in the specimen with copious white spotted tuft on the head and muscat feathers, and also pigeons of various subtypes on the right side of the painting.