Resumen de Una natura morta firmata di Luca Forte di provenienza Carafa
"A Still Life with Grapes, Peaches, Figs, and Wild Strawberries", signed in full and recently rediscovered in a private collection, prompts reflections on the oeuvre of Luca Forte. Although discussed by Charles Sterling in 1959 and published in this journal in 1962 by Raffaello Causa, the canvas has been overlooked by all subsequent scholarship, probably owing to a misidentification. In fact it can be recognised as the picture seen by Charles Sterling at the Mortimer Brandt Gallery in New York, forming a pair with the celebrated "Still Life" in the Ringling Museum, Srasota. This discovery enables us to trace the provenance back to Don Giuseppe Carafa, Duke of Maddaloni, the inventory of whose collection records the two canvases in 1648. The pictures appear to have remained as companion pieces for over three centuries until their separation and dispersal in about 1960. The high quality of the Still Life studied here confirms its prestigious patronage and affords an opportunity to appreciate the pronunced Caravaggesque naturalism addopted by Forte, which combined with Spanish influences and sober compositional bravura, paced him among the first and finest exponents of "Natura in posa" in Naples.
