Per la cerchia del Ribera a Napoli: una rilettura di Giovanni Ricca

• Autores: Giuseppe Porzio
• Localización: Commentari d'arte: rivista di critica e storia dell'arte, Vol. 17, Nº. 50, 2011, págs. 66-75
• Idioma: italiano
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • This article proposes to re-examine the little known personality of Giovanni Ricca, a painter active in Naples in the first half of the 17th century, often confused with the Riberesque Hendrick van Somer. After an analysis of the major works by the artist an the study of autograph paintings hitherto overlooked, the author gives an interpretation of the artist's style which provides the key to the identification of one of the important paintings commissioned from Ricca in 1634 by the duchess of Sermoneta for the Neapolitan church of S. Maria in Portico. This attribution enables the author to enlarge the artist's catalogue and to include the famous, and much debated, St. Catherine of Alexandria, formerly in the Einaudi collection and now in the Museo Civico of Turin. The result is the reconstruction of a remarkable and particulary original artist in the Neapolitan context of the second quarter of the 17th century, capable of giving an elegant and subtly colourful interpretation of Ribera's naturalism, half way between Pietro Novelli and Francesco Guarino.