A Cat Stealing Fish

Giuseppe Recco

late 1660s · Oil on canvas · European Paintings

This animated scene shows a cat caught in the act of devouring an octopus. The painting, dating from the high point of Recco’s career, shows the painter’s exceptional ability to depict a dazzling range of surfaces and materials, from iridescent fish scales, slimy mollusks, and other crustaceans, to hammered copper. Recco, who painted the seaweed into the letters of his initials (G R), was certainly aware of Flemish and Spanish still lifes, which were popular and much admired in Naples in the seventeenth century.

Artist

Giuseppe Recco

Date

late 1660s

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

Purchase, 1871