Francesco Solimena

This sketch, most likely painted from life, is a rarity in Solimena's œuvre. It was probably executed towards the end of the 1690s, the period when Solimena’s work combined both Baroque and Academic styles, influenced by the Roman classicism of Carlo Maratta. In these years he came to dominate the Neapolitan art scene, amassing a great fortune and running a prolific studio that employed artists such as Francesco de Mura, Corrado Giaquinto, Sebastiano Conca and even Allan Ramsay.

We are grateful to Prof. Nicola Spinosa and to Prof. Riccardo Lattuada for endorsing the attribution to Solimena on the basis of digital images.