The attribution proposed in 1957 by Anthony Clark, linking our drawing to the corpus of Giacomo del Po’s graphic work, appears entirely convincing.
Born in Rome in 1652, Giacomo del Po received his artistic training at a very early age from his father, the Baroque painter Pietro del Po. His talent quickly asserted itself and, in 1674, at only twenty-two years of age, he was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca, where he subsequently held the posts of Professor of Anatomy and Master of Ceremonies. When his family left Rome to settle in Naples, he contributed to the decoration of private villas belonging to the local nobility. There he fully developed his artistic sensibility and demonstrated a particular interest in allegorical painting, a field in which his creative imagination was able to flourish freely. In the following years, his mural frescoes and ceiling decorations combined natural chromatic harmonies with faux-stucco effects, making a major contribution to the development of Neapolitan painting in the eighteenth century. In this context, he produced numerous preparatory graphic studies, of which our work is a remarkable example.
From the first decade of the eighteenth century, Giacomo emerged, alongside Francesco Solimena and Paolo de Matteis, as one of the three principal painters on the Neapolitan scene.
The theme of Aurora and Apollo ushering in the day, widely represented on seventeenth-century painted ceilings, draws its power from classical mythology and embodies grandeur, exalting the authority of the figure who commissions it. In France, Louis XIV, by likening himself to Apollo, presented himself as a sovereign capable of bringing forth the day. Across Europe, these allegorical and airy compositions transformed ceilings into veritable animated heavens, combining the antique heritage with a majestic celebration of royal power.
The subject of our sheet belongs to the artist’s familiar repertoire: in his vast Neapolitan decorative cycles, he repeatedly explored mythological figures associated with Time, Light, and Renewal, among them the goddess Aurora, traditionally depicted advancing across the sky in her chariot, preceding the Sun. These compositions fall within the inherited Baroque tradition, notably that of Luca Giordano, whose inventive power he admired, in which celestial deities traverse open spaces filled with clouds, putti, and effects of light (ill. 1).
Certain graphic works by Giacomo del Po are distinguished by their richness and the profusion of detail they display. The lunette form of our drawing suggests that it was designed for a ceiling or the end of a vault, deliberately leaving the centre of the composition empty in order to accommodate, at a later stage, a high-relief sculpture integrated into the wall.
The technique of brown ink heightened with white gouache appears in several of the artist’s most accomplished studies. In the Molinari Pradelli collection 1, from which our drawing originates, there was preserved an Allegory of Night (ill. 2) executed in exactly the same technique, very likely produced during the same period. A second sheet, conceived for the same decorative scheme, depicts an Allegory of Twilight (ill. 3). These works demonstrate Del Po’s mastery in designing compositions for vaults and ceilings, where every detail contributes to the decorative and theatrical effect. In view of the form and composition of these two sheets, these allegories appear to have been conceived as studies for spandrels, whereas our drawing may constitute the central element of this decorative project.
After a career spanning more than fifty years, Giacomo del Po established himself as one of the leading exponents of late Neapolitan Baroque. His large-scale narrative compositions unfold a theatrical splendour, already anticipating Rococo art through idealised allegorical figures, sumptuous draperies, and elegantly orchestrated movements. Each ceiling may be read as a sky in motion, where light and gesture enter into dialogue with the architecture, testifying to an art that combines technical virtuosity with majesty.
M.O
1. Collection assembled by the Italian conductor Francesco Molinari-Pradelli (1911–1996), noted for the quality and coherence of its works, particularly Italian paintings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
