Giacomo Nani (Porto Ercole, 1698 – Napoli, 1755)

Bibliography of comparison: Achille della Ragione - La Natura Morta Napoletana del Settecento - Napoli, Edizioni Napoli Arte, 2010.

                                         N. Spinosa - 18th century Neapolitan painting. Dal Barocco al Rococò Napoli 1988, pp. 65-69; 96, figg. 196-199

                                          A. Tecce, Giacomo Nani, in - La Natura morta in Italia - Milano 1989, vol. II, p. 960

M. Santucci, in the National Museum of Capodimonte. Paintings of the eighteenth century, the Neapolitan school. Le collezioni borboniche e postunitarie, Napoli 2010, p. 130, n. 99 a-b, with previous bibliography

Giacomo Nani from his beginnings developed that kind of naturamortistic neo-realist taste purely seventeenth century, portraying in his works triumphs of food, flowers, fruit and game, representing almost a sort of "menu" of the kitchen of the time.

He was a pupil of Andrea Belvedere and Gaspare Lopez, but also collaborated with Paolo De Matteis, for whom he made the figures in some of his compositions, often taking up the famous painter Baldassare De Caro. He also worked as a decorator in the manufacture of Porcellane di Capodimonte, where he painted compositions of animals and still lifes. The still lifes of Giacomo Nani are in affinity with the works of Tommaso Realfonso, Giuseppe Recco and Giovanni Battista Ruoppolo, from which he drew those compositional and aesthetic models that made him in great demand in the eighteenth century by different personalities belonging to the nobility, as the Duchess of Newfoundland and the Duke of Limatola; many were also his paintings owned by King Charles of Bourbon, preserved today in Naples and Caserta.