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

Francesco Lavagna (Naples, 1684 - 1749)

Still life with flower pot

(4) Oil on canvas oval, cm 8.5 x 13.5

With frame, cm 18.5 x 22

The four still lifes with flower pot examined can be compared to the production of the Neapolitan painter Francesco Lavagna (Naples, 1684 - 1749). There are few documents on the artist, of which it has not yet been possible to define with absolute certainty the artistic and existential parable. Often, Francesco Lavagna is confused with Giuseppe Lavagna, with whom he almost certainly shares a relationship: the latter is mentioned by the biographer of painters, sculptors and architects of Naples Bernardo de Dominici as a student of the great painter Andrea Belvedere. Francesco is a painter with a style particularly close to that of Gaspare Lopez (?- Naples, 1732 circa), an important artist responsible for the execution of wonderful still lifes in the Neapolitan context. Since Lopez is recorded among the students of Andrea Belvedere, some scholars believe, based on the stylistic analysis of the works, that - although in total absence of documentary support - the training course of Francesco Lavagna may have been the same. The figure of Lavagna has recently been reconstructed in a more detailed manner thanks to the discovery of two old paintings on the antique market at the beginning of the eighties, one of which was clearly signed "Fran. Board P". These works have allowed, thanks to the many stylistic references to paintings appeared on the market, to reconstruct, still partially, the productive history of the artist, who is configured as an elegant interpreter of the new pictorial trend of the Neapolitan still life, closer to the French taste, more decorative and imaginative.