Flowers by a Pond with Frogs

This intriguing close-up of beautiful flowers, frogs, and insects is presented from what seems like the low viewing angle of an avid naturalist searching for specimens in the underbrush on the edge of an upland meadow. However, the knowledgeable viewer would delight in recognizing that this is a fantasy. Tulips were expensive, carefully cultivated flowers that were only to be found in well-tended gardens. Recco was the foremost painter of still lifes in 17th-century Naples. His works reveal the influence of Dutch painters working in Italy who introduced such "underbrush" subjects. The artist's signature is hidden among the greenery. For more information on this painting, please see Federico Zeri's 1976 catalogue no. 345, p. 468.