Francesco Solimena Canale di Serino 1657 - 1747 Barra

This is a late work by the artist, probably datable to the last few years of Solimena’s life, when the artist’s style becomes distinctively free in handling and his use of colour markedly more subdued. This manner, apparently less popular than his earlier style (characterised by greater chiaroscuro and three-dimensionality), was defended by De' Dominici in his biography on the artist noting that they were nonetheless painted by a 'gran maestro'. A similar handling of paint can be seen in another late work, a painting of the same subject formerly in the Wenner collection in Naples (see F. Bologna, Francesco Solimena, Naples 1958, p. 267, fig. 217), for which two preparatory drawings exist in the Museo di San Martino, Naples (one of them, inv. no. 20875, is reproduced in Dessins napolitains XVIIe XVIIIe siècles collection des musées de Naples, exh. cat., Chapelle des Petits-Augustins, École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 26 May - 10 July 1983, pp. 162-3, in colour on the cover of the catalogue). Apart from the obvious stylistic affinities between the ex-Wenner picture and the present work, the two canvases also share a number of compositional elements: they have a similar architectural background, with a staircase over an archway; the secondary figures are extremely close in both works; and both include still lifes in the lower right corner though the elements vary in each case. The main difference in the ex-Wenner picture is the insertion in the main figure-group of a centaur immediately to the left of the supplicating females in the front: this appears only in the ex-Wenner version and is also recorded in the San Martino drawing.

Although De' Dominici does not record any paintings of this subject – he merely mentions an engraving by Gaultier of The Battle of the Centaurs – Solimena seems to have turned to it on a number of occasions. The earliest treatment of the theme is probably the canvas formerly in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, destroyed in the Second World War (oil on canvas; 117 by 151 cm.; reproduced in Die Staatliche Gemäldegalerie zu Dresden, Berlin 1929, p. 219, no. 502). Although the main figure-group in the present canvas comes closest to that in the Dresden painting, the background is substantially different, the putti have been removed, and there is no still life in the Dresden picture. The latter entered the collections in 1723, thus providing a terminus ante quem, and Spinosa has dated the work to the end of the 1690s, thus making it Solimena’s first known treatment of the composition.

Further variations of the Dresden canvas, in which the figure-group is identical and the backgrounds similar, are in Bari, Cassa di Risparmio di Puglia (formerly Matarazzo collection, Naples; oil on canvas, 98 by 124 cm.), and in a Neapolitan private collection (formerly with Matthiesen Fine Art Ltd., London, 1986; oil on canvas; 116 by 152 cm.; both reproduced in N. Spinosa, Pittura napoletana del Settecento dal Barocco al Rococò, Naples 1986, vol. I, p. 121, cat. no. 67, reproduced p. 220, figs. 74 and 75). Spinosa dates both these works to 1735-40, that is well after the Dresden picture but before the ex-Wenner (and by extension the present) versions. The Bari painting appears to be a sketch for a larger picture, possibly the ex-Matthiesen canvas or an as yet untraced picture for which the ex-Matthiesen painting may be a modello.