The Baptism of Christ

"The Baptism of Christ"  oil on canvas from the circle of Francesco Solimena c1710.

Francesco Solimena was a painter of religious subjects, allegorical subjects and portraits; born in 1657, he died in 1747. He was the son and pupil of Angelo Solimena and with the intervention of Cardinal Orsini, later Pope Benedict XXXIII, he studied painting, going to Naples in 1674 to work with Francesco di Maria and Giacomo del Po. Between 1697 and 1708, he took part in the monumental decorative works at the abbey at Monetcassino. Although most of his working life was spent in Naples, he also visited Spain where Philip Vth asked him to execute several paintings for the Royal Chapel in Madrid. An outstanding Baroque artist, Solimena was first inspired by the style of Luca Giordano, to which he brought a solidity and more dramatic contrastive effects. ‘He exerted considerable influence on painters in subsequent generations both in Naples and Europe as a whole, and he and Luca Giordano ushered in the era of 18^th Century Neapolitan art with their respective decorative works in the Cappella Del Tesoro in S Martin. He was also a poet, architect and musician.

Biblio: Bénézit: Dictionnaire des Peintres.

Dimensions: 795 x 605