Francesco Lavagna (Neaples, 1684 – 1749)

Francesco Lavagna (Neaples, 1684 – 1749)

Still Life with Flower Vase

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

With frame, 18.5 x 22 cm

The four Still Lifes with Flower Vase under consideration can be attributed to the Neapolitan painter Francesco Lavagna (Naples, 1684 – 1749). There are few documents about the artist, and it has not yet been possible to define his artistic and personal life with absolute certainty. Francesco Lavagna is often confused with Giuseppe Lavagna, with whom he almost certainly shares a family connection: the latter is mentioned by the biographer of Neapolitan painters, sculptors, and architects, Bernardo de Dominici, as a pupil of the great painter Andrea Belvedere.

Francesco's style is particularly close to that of Gaspare Lopez (? - Naples, c. 1732), an important artist known for executing magnificent still lifes in the Neapolitan sphere. Since Lopez is listed among Andrea Belvedere's pupils, some scholars believe, based on a stylistic analysis of the works, that Francesco Lavagna's artistic training may have been the same, despite a complete lack of documentary evidence.

Lavagna's figure has recently been reconstructed in more detail thanks to the discovery of two canvases that appeared on the antiques market in the early 1980s, one of which is clearly signed “Fran. Lavagna P.” These works, due to their many stylistic references to other canvases on the market, have allowed for a partial reconstruction of the artist's productive history. He emerges as an elegant interpreter of the new Neapolitan still life painting trend, which was closer to the French taste—more decorative and imaginative. Lavagna favored compositions with cascades of flowers and fruit, usually set outdoors, accompanied by vases, pitchers, ancient ruins, statues of female figures, and animals. Another of the painter's distinctive features, also found in the series of paintings being examined, is the addition of ceramics with a delicate bluish color. This is not only a decorative chromatic device but also a testament to the refined taste for artisanal products that arrived in the great ports of the southern Mediterranean, such as Naples.

In this series of four canvases, which are small in size but demonstrate great technical skill, the painter offers a series of particularly vivid and peculiar still-life compositions. In the charming porcelain vases with blue decorations, the colorful flowers appear to be arranged with a seeming randomness; among them, one can recognize large roses, white and lilac carnations with frayed petals, pristine little bellflowers, and tulips. The color scheme, based on the soft tones of blues, greens, and pinks, with bursts of intense reds, is reminiscent of other examples from the Neapolitan painter's body of work. The luminous and iridescent colors of the beautiful flowers, which stand out in an extremely free arrangement in the four vases with blue decoration, recall, among others, the Still Life with Flower Vase at the civic museum of Asola, near Mantua. The rapid and full-bodied brushstrokes that distinguish the execution of the small oval canvases, on the other hand, seem to connect directly to one of the master's works now part of a private collection in Bergamo.

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