Francesco Solimena

London art market, by 1986.
 

N. Spinosa, Pittura napoletana del Settecento, Italy 1986, p. 118, cat. no. 52, illus. p. 210.

The canvas is relined which has rendered overall paint quality slightly pressed. Some thinness is perceptible along the craquelure. Paint has retained coloration, impasto, and many details throughout drapery. In hands it appears that paint has thinned somewhat but this is not disturbing. U.V. light reveals a thin repaired tear or scratch along right hand into drapery whose retouching is fairly visible with naked eye. U.V. also shows hazy varnish throughout but overall there seem to be very few retouchings underneath. Painting may be hung as is. In a carved and gilt wood frame.
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Nicolas Spinosa dates this portrait to the late 1720s or early 1730s, during the artist's early maturity (see literature).

Naples had been under Habsburg rule since 1714 and the Austrian Emperor Charles VI governed remotely from Vienna through the authority of viceroys resident in Naples. Solimena, having become the most sought-after artist in Naples after the death of Luca Giordano in 1705, received numerous commissions through the Habsburgs, not only in Naples, but also all over Europe and especially in Austria and Germany.  At the time this painting was executed, Count Harrach was viceroy in Naples.  He had been apointed 1728 and remained in this function until 1733.  Harrach was one of the most important art patrons and collectors in Naples at that time and bought numerous works there, many of which are still in the Harrach residence, the Schloss Rohrau, near Vienna.

Spinosa, in Pittura Napoletana del Settecento (see Literature) points out that the female sitter in the present portrait does not have Neapolitan facial features and that she, therefore, was most probably part of the Court of Count Harrach.  He notes the intriguing possibility, which would need to be confirmed by the discovery of a secure image, that the picture may be that of Harrach's wife, noting that the sources record a pair of portraits of Count and Countess Harrach by Solimena.