Paolo Porpora

Paolo Porpora (Naples, 1617 – Rome, 1673) was an Italian Baroque painter who specialized in still lifes of flowers and fruit, often including small animals such as reptiles, frogs, tortoises, snails and butterflies. His work combines the Neapolitan tradition with the influence of the Netherlandish still-life painters working in Rome, which makes him a notable figure of the genre in the seventeenth century.

He is documented in Naples in 1632, at the age of fifteen, training with Giacomo Recco, father of Giuseppe Recco. According to Dominici, he also worked in the workshop of Aniello Falcone. Around 1650 he moved to Rome, where he is recorded at the Accademia di San Luca in 1656 and 1658. There he absorbed the influence of the Northern painters based in the city, visible in flowers arranged within wooded landscapes and in tables loaded with fruit, a departure from the sober, Caravaggesque fruit bowls and vases.

Few of his works can be dated with certainty. Only one, a flower vase in a private collection that was accidentally damaged in August 2015, is signed. Among his pupils and followers were Giovan Battista Ruoppolo and, through him, Andrea Belvedere.