116 - LORENZO DE CARO

LORENZO DE CARO (Naples 1719–1777) The Penitent Magdalene Oil on canvas, 62 x 50 cm Notes: Work accompanied by a Certificate of Free Circulation The painting is accompanied by an expert report by Prof. Nicola Spinosa (attributed to Lorenzo De Caro) The following is the report prepared by Prof. Spinosa: “[...] Although previously attributed, while still in a private collection, to Francesco Solimena, it is in fact a confirmed work by the Neapolitan Lorenzo de Caro, active in the mid-18th century, primarily following in the tradition of recent works by Solimena and Francesco De Mura. Compared to their diverse approaches—which oscillated between ‘purism,’ Neo-Baroque, and moderate Classicism—Lorenzo de Caro, perhaps also aware of the results of painterly experiments that had taken place across the Alps at the beginning of the century, appears, with greater clarity and through formal and compositional subtleties, to have already been open to experimentation, even in compositions with sacred subjects, to certain aspects of European Rococo (St. Peter of Alcantara Confessing St. Teresa, Naples, Church of Saints Philip and James; Christ Carrying the Cross, Naples, private collection; Spinosa 1987 and 1993) [...] Essential bibliography: N. Spinosa, Neapolitan Painting of the Eighteenth Century: From Rococo to Classicism, Naples 1987 (1993), pp. 13–16, 56.” Nicola Spinosa