ANDREA VACCARO (Naples, 1604 - 1670) Madonna and Child Oil on canvas, 90X64 cm Andrea Vaccaro was a leading figure of the Neapolitan school of painting, sometimes unfairly underestimated by critics flattered more by chiaroscuro intransigences of the Caravaggio school than by concrete qualitative measures. Misunderstood, in fact, were his interpretations of the Roman-Bolognese models and the erudite balance with which he grafted Reno's sentiment to the tenebrous severities, touching formal and narrative results that were certainly not inferior to those conceived by Bernardo Cavallino or Massimo Stanzione (with whom he was often confused) and even more fascinating and mature when compared to the canvases of the Fracanzano brothers. The rigour of Vaccaro's research and creative tension also highlight Vandichian inflections, and at this point the fortune of certain illustrative themes becomes emblematic, in which the Pietà, the Sacred Families and, in particular, the Magdalenes compose, to paraphrase Raphael Causa, a 'veritable diary' of the suggestions dispensed by the Flemish artist. The analysis of Neapolitan pictorialism as a phenomenon involving all the brushes of the time, places Vaccaro's works among the best expressions of southern classicism, liable, if looked at distractedly, to be confused with the sensual heroines of his contemporary, and less chastened, Guido Cagnacci. In our case, as Bologna suggests, we are in the presence of a mature painting, circa 1660, which the scholar places in analogy with the Annunciation in the Battistella collection in Camerino, to which we can add the Madonna and Child already in the Zamboni collection (Zeri Archive, no. 50466). The work is accompanied by a critical file by Ferdinando Bologna.