Saturday, April 6, 2019

Sebastiano Conca (1680-1764) - Naples and Rome

Sebastiano Conca
Genius of History
(Allegorical Figure of Fame writing History)

before 1764
oil on copper
National Trust, Stourhead, Wiltshire

Sebastiano Conca
Education of Dionysus
ca. 1730
oil on canvas
Brighton and Hove Museums and Art Galleries

Sebastiano Conca
Sibyl
1726
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Sebastiano Conca
Glory of St Cecilia
ca. 1727
fresco (detail)
Basilica di Santa Cecilia in Trastavere, Rome

Sebastiano Conca
Blessings of Good Government
(Allegorical Scene representing the Government of Pope Benedict XIV)

ca. 1740-58
oil on canvas
Manchester Art Gallery

"Sebastiano Conca was born in Gaeta in 1680 and was initially trained in Naples under Francesco Solimena, whom he assisted in Monte Cassino and elsewhere.  From 1706 he was in Rome, where he continued his education through the study of the great masters.  His first important public work entailed several paintings in S. Clemente which were commissioned by Pope Clement XI in conjunction with the refurbishing of the church in 1714; these were much acclaimed.  From this point onward Conca was one of the busiest and most famous artists in Rome and the Papal States.  His works were soon well known and sought after outside of Italy as well.  Conca enjoyed a particular reputation as a teacher; his atelier (in the Palazzo Farnese) was perhaps the most frequented in Rome.  In 1751 he was called to Naples to undertake a major fresco project, the decoration of the ceiling of the renovated church of S. Chiara.  He left Rome for good and spent the rest of his life in Naples, where he died in 1764."

– Hermann Voss, from Baroque Painting in Rome (1925), revised and translated by Thomas Pelzel (San Francisco: Alan Wofsy, 1997)

Sebastiano Conca
Rinaldo and Armida
ca. 1725
oil on canvas
Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri

Sebastiano Conca
Adoration of the Shepherds
1720
oil on canvas
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Sebastiano Conca
Virgin and Child in Glory
above the Four Latin Fathers of the Church

before 1764
oil on panel (sketch)
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Sebastiano Conca
Alexander the Great in Jerusalem
1736
oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Sebastiano Conca
Idolatry of Solomon
ca. 1750
oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid
 
Sebastiano Conca
Prophet Jeremiah
1718
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Sebastiano Conca
Venus at the Forge of Vulcan
ca. 1716-18
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

attributed to Sebastiano Conca
Study for Crucifixion
before 1764
drawing
Art Institute of Chicago

Sebastiano Conca
Dead Christ with Angels
before 1764
oil on canvas
Besançon Cathedral (France)