Ignored in the artistic historiography of the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries, Vincenzino was rediscovered by Luigi Malvezzi: “in the biographies of the painters I have found no mention of the name of Giuseppe Vincenzino from Milan, very talented painter of flowers. And yet, I had in my hands paintings signed by his hand. The true paintings by him are well composed and very well executed, with vivid colours, and they look like those of the painter Margherita Caffi da Cremona.
Many copies were made, and reproductions by his pupils, nearly all of them not in oil, but with strong glue for the decoration of villas. Many think he is a woman, because his name ends in a”.
The oldest document that allows us to follow Vincenzino’s activity is a payment directed to him registered in the books of the administration of the count Vitalino Borromeo in 1685 (“to Mr Vincenzino, painter, in payment for two paintings); the name of the artist then appears in the archives of collections in Lombardy formed in the second half of the XVIIth Century: in 1698 he is presented in Borromeo’s collection, in 1711 in the Padua palace of the duke of Mantova Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga.
Giuseppe Vincenzino, with Margherita Caffi is responsible for the development of Baroque still-life in Lombardy, he renewed the figurative repertory thanks to the study of the more up-to-date tendencies of contemporary painting; his stylistic choices constitute a parallel to the taste of the collectors in Milan in the late XVIIth Century, focused on collecting examples of the new Roman Baroque painting: Mario Nuzzi, Karel Vogelaer, Abraham Brueghel, artists that often come up in local inventories, were the most important interlocutors for Vincenzino during his formation.
The influence of Nuzzi’s floral compositions is obvious, while the refined pictorial technique of the Milanese artist is influenced by the example of Brueghel. The thick material, characterised by a vivid light, enables Vincenzino with extraordinary mimetic effects, reminding the naturalistic Flemish tradition, the carnations treated with red lacquer and white tones, the tulips in bright red, yellow, purple, the candid narcissus remind Brueghel’s executive technique.Certain works by the Lombard artist are close to the Flemish painter even from the compositional point of view.
The narrow stylistic and compositional between the still-lives of Vincenzino and Caffi give the idea of a common formation of the two artists in the workshop of a then unknown specialist in the genre, active in Milan around the 1650’s.
The painting that we propose here shows all the characteristics of Vincenzino’s pictorial art.The free composition of the natural elements, the implant of great decorative power, the use of lacquers and colours rich of transparencies that made Vincenzino particularly close to the best results in Baroque still-life in Southern Italy, melt in a lively and joyful execution.