Francesco Solimena, Italian 1657-1747- Two putti... Lot 29

Francesco Solimena, Italian 1657-1747- Two putti in flight; oil on canvas, the stretcher applied with an old printed label inscribed 'S. E. L. / Cleveland Museum / of Art / TR 15652/47', 28.7 x 21.7 cm. Provenance: Private Collection, UK. Exhibited: The Hazlitt Gallery, London, 'Baroque and Rococo Paintings and Oil Sketches, May 1962, no. 25. Note: Francesco Solimena was the leading painter of the Neapolitan late Baroque, following closely in the footsteps of his predecessor Luca Giordano (1634-1705), whose dynamic and dramatically lit works served as a great inspiration to the younger artist. In the present confidently and freely painted oil sketch Solimena has recreated a detail from his fresco of The Holy Trinity with St Philip Neri which he painted circa 1727-30 for the Church of the Girolamini in Naples. A larger oil study for that fresco is in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford [WA1937.124]. Solimena appears to have slightly reworked the detail in the present picture, omitting the third putto who hovers in the top right corner alongside the two depicted here. We are grateful to Professor Nicola Spinosa for confirming the attribution to Solimena on the basis of photographs.