GiovanNi Battista Recco, Lot n° 317

kitchen stills with brass and copper vessels and two of them oil on canvas 118 x 174 cm. Unframed. The painting is accompanied by a letter from Nicola Spinosa dated March 2020 - in connection with the completion of the catalogue raisonné - with confirmation of the two painters mentioned as the originators of the painting, with reference to the fact that the work can be dated to the early 1630s. This painting of the highest quality is of a decidedly large format. The objects are placed next to each other in a calm order, illuminated from the left, which brings out the metallic shine, especially against the completely dark background. In the background two servants, behind the large-format kitchen utensils, only shown in half-portrait, facing each other. The figure on the left is shown in a slanting posture with beard and a bright white, turban-like braided headscarf, with which the painter sought to achieve a deliberate brightening of the picture. The figure at the right edge of the picture is somewhat shaded, with a red cap and grey-green jacket. In the merging of the two genres of painting, such as genre painting and still life, the latter predominates here, with the metallic objects reproduced in emphasized size, such as the tripod kettle on the right with the beaked flagon set in it, the lying shiny bucket in the centre of the picture, and the copper and brass kettles with plates and cutlery and a copper lid in the left part of the picture. In addition to the extremely skilful reproduction of the shining metal effects, the painter has also placed a large glazed clay jug in the picture, which the servant on the left in the picture surrounds, with a dark green, brown and reddish speckled ceramic glaze. There is no doubt that the artist wanted to achieve the highest level of painterly ability to depict metallic lustre. In the sense of this genre specialization, the collaboration of the two painters mentioned above is evide