Oil painting/architectural model, 'Paradise: Sketch Model for a Painted Cupola', attributed to Francesco Solimena (1657-1747).

A series of concentric rings with cloud-borne figures from the Old and the New testaments depicted in a light palette with flickering patterning of light and shade.

Purchased, 1889

Historical significance: This oil sketch was acquired as an anonymous 'Italian early 18th century' and successively ascribed to Francesco Solimena (Croce, 1897) and eventually to his pupil Sebastiano Conca (1680-1764) (Bologna, 1958).
This work is a modello for a painted cupola, which does not appear to have ever been executed. It consists in a series of concentric rings with figures sitting on clouds around a smaller ring in the middle, formed by a flock of putti. Layer follows upon layer until finally everything seems to dissolve into infinity in the void of the central ring, probably empty because an oculus was supposed to occupy this space.
An attempt to identify some of the figures can be made starting from the bottom clockwise: the two figures dressed in white, the closest to the central ring and therefore at the top of the hierarchy, can be interpreted as Christ (left) and God the Father (right).On Christ's left hand side, the figure dressed in blue is probably the Virgin Mary, flanked by Joseph. Beneath God the Father, is the dominant figure of the whole composition, the only one with a halo and supported by an angel. It may be therefore St Matthew, whose traditional attribute is a winged person resembling an angel. The enigmatic column on its right may allude to him being an evangelist, hence one of the 'pillar' of the Christian dogma. If so, this sketch was made for the decoration of a church dedicated to St Matthew or whoever this enigmatic figure incarnates.
The rest of the figures are characters from the Old and the New Testaments. On the same rank of the Virgin but further up, can be recognised St Jerome, half naked only covered by a traditionally red cloak (alluding to his bishop’s title as he is considered one of the four Fathers of the Western Church) and perhaps St Augustine traditionally immersed in his studies.
Around the edge, beneath the Virgin, the armed figure could be King David, followed above by Abraham and his son Isaac, Moses holding the tables of the law and Noah with the ark, while further up are the naked Adam and Eve with their two young sons, Cain and Abel, then come friars, monks and clergymen dressed in different religious costumes such as the Carthusian (white), Dominican (black and white) and Franciscan (brown) orders, and the red bishop's chasuble.
This work illustrates therefore the glory of a saint among his pairs, as part of the divine hierarchy and placed right under God the Father in the Paradise.
The composition derives from the famous decoration of the cathedral dome of Parma dedicated to the Virgin and showing Christ in glory among the apostles, executed by Correggio between 1526 and 1530. Another interesting example is the dome frescoes in the chapel of S. Gennaro in the homonymous cathedral, Naples, depicted by Giovanni Lanfranco during the first half of the 1640s. It shows an analogous arrangement with allegorical figures of the Christian Virtues, between layers of putti and clouds. Our composition appears however less exuberant, lighter and more balanced than the earlier two, anticipating thus the Rococo taste.
The attribution to the young Sebastiano Conca proposed by F. Bologna appears rather inconclusive as nothing either as a sketch or a completed ceiling looks like it. On the other hand, the old attribution to F. Solimena seems more plausible as the toned down colour scheme and brown shadowing as well as the flickering patterning of light and shade, the clarity of line, and the theatricality are characteristic of Solimena's art, in which oil sketches formed an important part of his working methods. The cloud-borne figures, enveloped in billowing draperies, a Baroque theme originally created by Bernini, are equally recurring in his oeuvre. Particularly close to 534-1889 in terms of composition is the fresco Paradise of the Apostles for the Cathedral of Nocera Inferiore, executed in 1680 by Francesco and his father Angelo.

An oil sketch is a type of painted work of small dimensions that first appeared in the 16th century. It derives from the Renaissance practice of preparatory drawings in pen and ink and is generally executed as a preparatory study in mixed oil and tempera for a finished larger work as an alternative to drawings. The finish of these studies, often called modello, can be more or less refined. The earliest known oil sketches are by Polidoro da Caravaggio (ca. 1497-ca. 1543) but the technique spread quickly among the artists including Federico Barocci (1528-1612), Cristofano Allori (1577-1621), Tintoretto (1519-1594 ) and Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609-1664 ) and became an important feature of the Baroque art. Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) for example is one of the greatest examples of Baroque artists' use of the oil sketch and contributed to introduce its practice to Flanders. This method benefits to both artists and patrons as not only the artists were able to present and promote their work through these support but the patrons could also request an oil sketch to evaluate a project at an early stage. Sometimes considered as a works of art in se, oil sketches were also offered by the artists to connoisseurs. Oil sketches were still favoured during the Rococo and the Romantic period but at the end of the 19th century, the artists tent to paint more and more directly on the support, abandoning thus gradually the oil sketch in its function as a preparatory study.

Francesco Solimena (1657-1747) was born in Canale di Serino near Naples and was trained by his father Angelo before being influenced by the Baroque art of Luca Giordano (1634-1705) and Mattia Preti (1613-1699). He soon became very successful in the European courts and dominated the Neapolitan painting in the first half of the 18th century. He had many pupils among which the most famous are Sebastiano Conca (1680-1764) Francesco de Mura (1696-1782) and Corrado Giaquinto (1703-1765).

Formerly attributed to Sebastiano Conca, this oil sketch for the decoration of a cupola was most likely executed by his teacher Francesco Solimena whose art presents many similarities with the present work. It shows the glory of a saint (St Matthew?) who sits on clouds under the aegis of God the Father and Christ flanked by figures of the Old and the New testaments. This composition slightly lighter and more balanced than the usual baroque pictures anticipates somehow the Rococo taste of the first half of the 18th century.

534-1889