Leonardo Coccorante, 1680 Neapel – um 1750, zugeschrieben

ARCHITECTURAL CAPRICCIO Oil on canvas. 195 x 120 cm. In gilded frame. From an elevated vantage point, view of the entrance to a palatial building by the sea with round arches and imaginatively designed columns, the capitals of which consist partly of floral patterns and partly of rolled-up velutes. The upper end of the palatial building is formed by a balustrade, on which some of the imaginatively designed vases stand. A window can also be seen in the lower middle section of the building, in front of which a white and blue sunshade is attached. In the foreground, two men are in conversation, one of whom is dressed in a yellow robe and wearing a blue headdress and is looking directly out of the picture. Behind them, on the edge of the shore, two men look out over the vast sea, in which various ruined buildings can be seen on the right on a promontory jutting out into the sea, against a mountainous background. The palace under a high, light blue sky with a few clouds in the warm, partly yellowish light of the setting sun. The imaginative idea of the palace and ruins as well as the yellow-brownish masonry are typical trademarks of the Italian artist. Coccorante was an important representative of the ruin landscape or ruin capricci. However, his works are stylistically very different from those of Roman painters such as Ricci or Piranesi, as Coccorante was active much earlier and thus actually stood at the beginning of this genre. He first studied in Naples under Nicola Carissa and the Flemish painter Jan Frans van Bloemen (1662-1749), then worked with Viviano Codazzi. Together with Angelo Maria Costa (1670-1721), however, he turned to stage-like capricci, which were in great demand throughout Europe at the time. He completed his studies under Gabriele Richiardelli. He soon became one of the most successful painters of this genre in his home town. Numerous works by his hand, which can be found in Neapolitan collections, confirm this. Oreste Ferrari (1954) and then Sergio Ortolani (1970) were the first to draw attention to the importance of the painter. He also became widely known and appreciated through the 1979 exhibition of Neapolitan painting of the Settecento and the subsequent findings of Nicola Spinosa and Leonardo di Mauro. As for Coccorante's success, we know that he worked in the artistic circle of Carlo di Borbone, King of the Two Sicilies, for example for decorations in the Palazzo Reale di Caserta, on the occasion of the marriage of Charles VII to Maria Amalia of Saxony in 1738. In addition, many of his works have gone to France, Spain and England, for example to public collections: Museo Regionale Agostino Pepoli (Trapani), Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco (Milan), Louvre, Musée départemental de l'Oise (Beauvais), Grenoble Museum, The Lowe Art Museum (Coral Gables, Florida), and Honolulu Museum of Art. (1401701) (2) (18) Leonardo Coccorante, 1680 Naples - ca. 1750, attributed ARCHITECTURE CAPRICCIO Oil on canvas. 195 x 120 cm.