FEDELE FISCHETTI | THE TRIUMPH OF LAMBA DORIA

Giorgio Uzielli, New York;

By whose estate sold, New York, Sotheby's, 15 January 1987, lot 68 (as Mariano Salvador Maella);

There acquired by Agnews, London;

From whom acquired, 1991.  

N. Spinosa, Pittura napoletana del Settecento dal Rococò al Classicismo, Naples 1987, pp. 102, 137, 140, cat. no. 213, reproduced plate 48 (as Fidele Fischetti).

This lively canvas is a modello by Fedele Fischetti for a ceiling fresco he painted in 1784 for a principal hall in the Palazzo Doria D'Angri in Naples. The Doria, were a prominent feudal family of Genoese origin who produced a long line of military men, among the most prominent being Andrea Doria (1466-1560), a Genoese statesman famously portrayed by Sebastiano del Piombo in circa 1526¹ as well as his forbearer, the Genoese admiral Lamba Doria (1245-1323), who appears at the center of the present work. In 1270, he defeated the Venetians in battle, and he is shown here standing triumphantly beneath his family's coat of arms held aloft by angels having just returned home to Genoa with Venetian captives. In the distance, beyond the hometown crowd that has welcomed him home with great fanfare, appears the famed lighthouse of La Laterna, one of the most recognizable landmarks in Genoa.  

1. Oil on panel, 153 by 107 cm, Doria Pamphilj Gallery, Rome.