Nicola Levoli

NICOLA LEVOLI (Rimini, 1728 -1801).
"Still life of fish".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
It has a frame of the eighteenth century with damage.
Measurements: 30 x 42,5 cm; 39,5 x 50,5 cm (frame).
In a horizontal format the artist recreates an austere interior where the still life is presented on two levels, although all the elements are arranged as a frieze and almost on the same plane, based on a clear and frontal vision that allows a better reading of all the elements contained in the scene. As for the aesthetic treatment, it is worth mentioning the tenebrist heritage of the image. The dark background and the taste for detail is evident in the technical treatment of the elements that make up the scene.
Nicola Levoli was an Italian painter and Augustinian friar. He was a student of Ubaldo Gandolfi, director of the Accademia Clementina in Bologna from 1761. Levoli is known for his still lifes and floral depictions. He entered the mendicant life on January 29, 1747 in Bologna, in the convent of San Giacomo Maggiore. However, he was always inclined to painting, and in 1762 he was already a member of the Accademia Clementina di Bologna. He won a competition in 1765 for painting flowers and collaborated with Gandolfi on some canvases, painting the flowers and objects. Levoli also painted some altarpieces and sacred works, now lost. In 1769 he was already associated with the convent of San Agostino in Rimini, where he lived until its suppression in 1797 after the French occupation. He was sent to the convent of Minori Osservanti until his death in 1801. Zauli Naldi (1961) attributed three still lifes in the Ongaro collection in Milan to Levoli, but the attribution was changed to a follower of Levoli's style, the Rimini nobleman Ludovico Soardi (born 1764). In 1964 other still lifes were discovered, one of them in the Pinacoteca civica of Faenza. Since then, more than half a dozen attributions have been made. Some of them had previously been attributed to Arcangelo Resani. Later paintings resemble the style of Carlo Magini.