Francesco Solimena Canale di Serino 1657 - 1747 Barra

John and Dora Koch, New York;
Anonymous sale ("Property from the Collection of John and Dora Koch, Sold for the Benefit of Manhattan School of Music"), New York, Christie's, 31 May 1989, lot 74;
Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 20 May 1993, lot 52;
Anonymous sale ("Property of a Bankruptcy Estate, sold by Order of the Bankruptcy Court"), London, Sotheby's, 30 January 1997, lot 47, where acquired by the present owner.

New York, New York Cultural Center (as reported in 1997 catalogue).

This painting, with its parapet and foreshortened figures seen dal sotto in su, is probably a bozzetto or modello for a large-scale work, almost certainly for a church in Naples. Prof. Nicola Spinosa, to whom we are grateful, has tentatively suggested that it might be a sketch for the much-damaged frescoes in the cupola of the church of Santa Maria Donnalbina. He has also kindly informed us of the existence of a drawing, in a Neapolitan private collection, which records the same composition as that in the present painting. Furthermore a drawing by Solimena in the Museo di San Martino, Naples, where it is described as a sketch for an unidentified cupola, includes some figures that are identical to those shown here (inv. 20461; first published by W. Vitzthum, in Disegni napoletani del Sei e del Settecento nel Museo di Capodimonte, exh. cat., Naples, Capodimonte, 19 December 1966 - 19 February 1967, p. 26, cat. no. 36, reproduced, and subsequently in Dessins napolitains XVIIe XVIIIe siècles collections des musées de Naples, exh. cat., Chapelle des Petits-Augustins, Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 26 May - 10 July 1983, p. 140, reproduced on facing page).