Still-Life with Fish, Shellfish and Copperware

Giovan Battista Recco, along with Luca Forte and the little-known Giacomo Coppola, was one of the leading representatives of the first generation of Neapolitan still-life painters.

This painting shows two characteristic elements of the iconographic repertory of Recco: the hand-beaten copper cauldron filled with water that glistens in the light, and the large fish strung by its gills on the cord tied to the jutting nail. The oblique light shattering the dark interior from above is a Caravaggesque solution.