FELICE BOSELLI (Piacenza, 1650 - Parma, 1732) Still Life of Fish Oil on canvas, 63X79 cm Provenance: Milan, private collection The painting presents a realistic and rich fish composition in the foreground. The robust brushstrokes, dense with paint paste in warm colours are made brilliant in some passages by skilful highlights, skilfully imitating the glare of wet surfaces and offering the observer a concrete and vivid mimesis of nature in pose. These features and the quality of the execution confirm the reference to Felice Boselli, more precisely to his maturity, between the first and second decade. By way of comparison, we can cite countless similar creations published by Ferdinando Arisi (cf. Arisi 1973, nos. 389, 409; 410 and figs. 457; 459), in which the same darting pictorial conduction can be observed, which could be described as theatrical in the best sense. This explains the extraordinary critical and commercial fortune of the artist, whose canvases are cited in all the ancient inventories of Parma and Piacenza in virtue of his fashionable manner and the beauty of his creations. Reference bibliography: F. Arisi, Felice Boselli Pittore di natura morta, Piacenza 1973, ad vocem G. Godi, Fasto e Rigore. La Natura Morta nell'Italia Settentrionale dal XVI al XVIII Secolo, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2000, ad vocem D. Benati, L. Peruzzi, La Natura morta in Emilia e in Romagna. Pittori, centri di produzione e collezionismo fra XVII e XVIII secolo, Milan 2000, ad vocem