Even today, in a rather unique way, there is no exhaustive study on Andrea Vaccaro despite the career of the Neapolitan painter was carried out for a good part of the seventeenth century crossing the paths of other artists from Battistello to Stanzione, from Ribera to Giordano and left a trace of great importance on the events of painting in the capital of the viceroyalty. The recent volume by Anna Tuck - Scala is more of an introduction to the artist’s work and is limited to a partial list of documented works. Yet both in life and in the decades following his death, the fame of Vaccaro was very high: De Dominici in the Lives defines him "Noble Professor", Baldinucci mentions him as a painter "of great cry" and the Neapolitan scholar Onofrio Giannone does not hesitate to talk about it as the "Raffael Napoletano". The artist’s beginnings, which took place throughout his career in Naples, are placed at the turn of the second and third decade of the seventeenth century; in his early works sharp and strong is the adherence to Caravaggio’s models, not only mediated by Battistello and the young Ribera but also studied on the originals as the De Dominici tells us and as evidenced by works such as the Judith with the head of Holofernes (Robilant + Voena, London - Milan - New York - Paris, fig. 1) where there is a clear link with Salome that Caravaggio painted during his second stay in Naples and that is now preserved at the National Gallery in London.The '30s saw a clear shift in the classicist and neo -Venetian sense, due, according to the story of De Dominici, the meeting with Stanzione that sees the Cavalier Massimo scold Vaccaro for the mistakes he made following Caravaggio but that should rather be read in a general change of taste that in those years affects all Neapolitan artists.

At this moment it is certainly also up to this unprecedented Encounter of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, long preserved in the collection of the Galatian Princes of Palermo. The warmer and golden tones, the greater monumentality of the figures are clear indications of Vaccaro’s interest in Venetian painting of the Renaissance and a turn in the classicist sense. The same traits are found in works already known to the studios as the Pasce oves meas of private collection (fig. 2)In the following years, classicism became more and more evident and the artist’s compositions took on more enamelled tones and an increasing refinement and elegance, as evidenced by works such as the Death of Dido of private collection and the extraordinary Allegory of Painting, also in the Neapolitan private collection.