In the manner of Francesco Solimena, "Immaculate Conception", Italian school of the 17th - 18th century

Oil on canvas. Francesco Solimena, who had started humanistic studies, saw his career determined by the profession of his father, the painter Angelo Solimena. He began as an assistant to the latter, but the true influence of his early training was the painting of Luca Giordano, of whom he was a friend, Pietro da Cortona and Lanfranco, and Mattia Preti, whose palette of dark and somber tones exerted a strong attraction in his work. In 1674 he had settled in Naples, where he lived all his life, hardly ever leaving the city, despite the numerous commissions he carried out for various European courts, including the Spanish through his relationship with Carlos de Borbón, the future Carlos III of Spain. Of the works of its early period, it is necessary to highlight the frescoes in the sacristy of the church of San Paolo Maggiore (1689-1690), in which the clear and luminous style derived from Giordano is still evident. In later years, the color darkens, the artist attracted by the works of the Neapolitan tenebrists, giving his painting a greater emotional and dramatic density. In those first decades of the 18th century, he was the undisputed teacher in Naples, with a workshop in which artists of notable importance, such as Pietro del Pò, Giaquinto or Giuseppe Bonito, were trained. Solimena painted for the most important Neapolitan churches, such as San Paolo Maggiore, San Domenico Maggiore, San Filippo Neri ai Gerolamini or the Gesù Nuovo, and her easel paintings on religious or mythological themes, as well as portraits (Mena, M .: Catalog of drawings, VII, Italian Drawings of the 18th and 19th centuries, Museo del Prado, 1990, p. 136). Total measurements: