Francesco Solimena

(Serino , 1657 - Napoli, 1747)

Oil painting on canvas

cm. 62x75

Work notified by the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism on 2/9/2020. The painting frames the lower left part of a large altarpiece by Francesco Solimena depicting the Madonna with Child, Angels and Saints which was located on the high altar of the church of San Gaudioso Vescovo di Salerno in Naples. A demanding work that had been commissioned in 1732 and Solimena had completed the following year, receiving the balance only in 1734. We know from the sources that the artist, satisfied with his result ("pleased Solimena"), had affixed the his signature accompanying it with the 1733 thousandth (B. De Dominici, Lives of the Neapolitan painters, sculptors and architects, ed. cons. Naples, 1846, IV, p. 448) but unfortunately the paintings were lost [...] in a fire hanged in the church in 1799 during the reaction to the Neapolitan Republic. From the artistic historical report of the notification certificate.