Still life with fish and seafood
(c. 1630)
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
62.2 × 82.7 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Presented by RCR Holdings Pty Ltd through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program, 2025
Gallery location
16th & 17th Century Gallery - Painting and Sculpture
Mezzanine linked to Level 1, NGV International
About this work
Giovanni Battista Recco was a seventeenth-century painter of still lifes, belonging to the Neapolitan School. Recco mainly painted still lifes of fish, seafood and shellfish. According to Italian scholar Nicola Spinosa: ‘His naturalistic style, inspired by everyday life and Spanish painting, employed contrasting chiaroscuro and sophisticated effects of light and reflection, while remaining sensitive to the problems of colour.’ This sea-themed still life offers a marvellous array of lobster, razor clams, shellfish, crabs and diverse species of fish, spilling out of and arranged before a wicker basket.