Lot 33: Luca Forte , Naples circa 1615 - before 1670 Place Unknown a still life with red and green grapes, apples, pears, hazelnuts, figs, walnuts and plums over a stone ledge oil on canvas, unlined

signed on the reverse of the unlined canvas: Luca Forte oil on canvas, unlined

measurements note 65.4 by 77.3 cm.; 25 3/4 by 30 3/8 in.

A. Cottino, 'Sull'asse Roma-Napoli: idee, legami e relazioni per la natura morta', in Paragone, LVIII, no. 71, Jan. 2007, pp. 3-10; reproduced plate 1, and the detail of the signature reproduced plate 2;
A. Cottino, Natura silente, Turin 2007, p.69, reproduced plate 55.

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
This beautiful unlined canvas, signed on the reverse, is a characteristic work by Luca Forte, one of the leading still life painters in the first half of the Neapolitan seicento. Little is known of the artist's life but he is recorded as a witness to Aniello Falcone's wedding in 1639 and it is in Falcone's studio that he is thought to have trained, along with Recco and Porpora. His early development is also thought to owe much to contemporary still-life painters in Rome such as Crescenzi and Salini, and to the work of Spanish artists, especially Blas de Ledesma and Juan van der Hamen. In Paragone, Cottino (see Literature) does not rule out a possible visit to Rome by Forte. He makes explicit this potential link to Roman painting by comparing the present canvas to the work of the Master of the Acquavella Still Life, one of Caravaggio's closest followers in Rome. However, it is hard to put forward a clear chronology for his oeuvre, all the more so since so few of his works are signed or dated.

The artist has carefully laid out the different still-life elements, and each is given its own role in the overall composition. Form and depth are created through the delicate play of light and shade, pointing to the Caravaggesque influences in the artist's approach. Whilst the Still life with Fruit, Crystal Cups and Tuberose in the Galleria Corsini in Romeυ1, carried out early in his career, is still heavily indebted to Caravaggio's still life in the Ambrosiana,υ2 in the present work we are faced with an artist at least in his early maturity.

The fine details of the work stand out: the freshness of the grapes is felt through the light that bounces off them; the little worm holes and contours of the apples add texture to the work. The sumptuously laid bunches of grapes which spill over the ledge, as well as the polished surface of the apples, recur in Forte's signed Still life with Fruit in the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.υ3 The detailed fruits laid out over a stone ledge with the light which comes into the composition from the left can also be compared with another signed work from Forte's maturity, probably his masterpiece, in the Molinari Pradelli Collection.υ4


1. See J. Spike, Italian Still Life Paintings, exhibition catalogue, Florence 1983, p. 56, reproduced fig. 18.
2. See A. Ottino Della Chiesa, Caravaggio, Milan 1967, p. 91, cat. no. 31, reproduced in colour plates XVI-XVII.
3. See, Spike, op. cit., p. 60, cat. no. 17, reproduced in colour p. 61.
4. See M. Gregori, La Natura morta italiana da Caravaggio al settecento, exhibition catalogue, Rome 2002, p. 195, reproduced in colour.