Italian painter, also known as Abate Andrea Belvedere. At the start of his career his work was inspired by Paolo Porpora and particularly by the early works of Giuseppe Recco. He excelled in painting still-life paintings of fruit and flowers. He was employed by Charles II of Spain; and in collaboration with Luca Giordano, who painted the figures, he helped to decorate the Escorial.
Combining flower painting with ancient sculpture - here, a relief showing an amorous couple - was a seventeenth-century subgenre in which Andrea Belvedere excelled. This large work is one of his most famous.
Belvedere was one of the leading proponents of still-life painting in Naples. His works were largely inspired by those of his teacher Paolo Porpora, as well as the works of Giovanni Battista Ruoppolo.
The present painting depicts a floral still-life with peonies, parrot tulips, mallow, larkspur, iris, and nasturtiums. It derives much of its charm from the contrast between the opulent asymmetrical arrangement of sunlit flowers in the foreground and the monochrome shadowy landscape background. This pronounced chiaroscuro is typical of Belvedere’s works.
