Sebastiano Conca

Sebastiano Conca, one of the most sought-after late Baroque painters in Rome, received his initial training in Naples from Francesco Solimena. In 1706 he went to Rome, where he established himself as a church painter and soon received commissions from royal houses in Europe. His studio was located in the Palazzo Farnese. In 1719 he was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca and later became its principal (1729–32 and 1739–41); he was knighted by Pope Pius XI. In 1751 Conca returned to Naples, where he produced ceiling frescoes in the Church of Santa Chiara, which at this time was radically extended and given a Baroque design.

The present depiction of The Judgement of Solomon is an excellent example of late Baroque draughtsmanship of the Roman school. Conca has sketched the dramatic scene, in which the real mother of the threatened child reveals who she is, with vigorous yet refined use of the pen. In stylistic and technical respects the work is similar to the drawings An Asian Queen and a Roman General (inv. RCIN 906817) in Windsor and Saint Bibiana in the British Museum (inv. 1946,0713.95). Other stylistically comparable sheets can be found in the Albertina (inv. 1351 and 1352) and other collections.

Conca may well have drawn on the present drawing for one of the ceiling frescoes in Santa Chiara in Naples that have not survived (cat. Sebastiano Conca 1680–1764, Gaeta, 1981, pp. 328–332, no. 122b). The figure of Solomon – shown in Santa Chiara in the episode with the Queen of Sheba – is a variation on the David in the present drawing of the Judgement of Solomon. The drawing itself could have arisen in connection with a commission in Turin twenty years earlier. In 1733 Conca, together with Giovanni Battista Pittoni, Francesco Monti and Agostino Masucci, was commissioned to provide paintings (one by each artist) for the Camera del Solimena of the Palazzo Reale in Turin, which was already decorated with biblical scenes by Conca’s teacher Solimena. While Conca was entrusted with depicting the Ark of the Covenant, Masucci’s task was to produce a Judgement of Solomon, the main figure of which matches in reverse the figure in the present drawing (now in the Palazzo Madama in Turin, inv. 0542/D) with a similar round pedestal and curtain. The drawing is squared in pencil and mounted. From the collection of Erich Schleier, former curator of the Gemäldegalerie SMPK in Berlin.

14.000 €