A selection of master drawings 2016

The clarity of the structure, the classically balanced
composition and the nobility of the figures, not entirely
devoid of a rocaille verve, has led to the temporal placing
of the execution of this model in the central stage of the
artistic journey of Fischetti, or rather around the start of
the ninth decade of the 1700’s at the time of his closest
adhesion to the neoclassical influence of Angelika
Kauffmann. In support of this dating are comparisons
with other important works carried out by the painter
during this time: together with the frescoes in the Doria
d’Angri palace, executed between 1783 and 1784,
above all it reminds one of the coeval canvas of Allegory
of Love (Naples, Gambardella collection) 4 and the series
of allegorical paintings, also dating from the same years,
completed by Fischetti for the bedroom of Charles
de Bourbon’s son in the Madrid Royal Palace (today
at El Pardo, Palacio Real) 5 . Both in the Gambardella
canvas and in the Allegories of Peace and Prosperity in El
Pardo, the feminine figure personifying Authority in our
modello, appears almost identical, indicating a plausible
temporal proximity.
Maria Cecilia Fabbri
1 Cf. C. Ripa, Iconologia, Venice, ed. 1645, pp. 25-26; 231-232;
235-236; 281.
2 Ibid., pp. 178; 286-287; 672.
3 Ibid., pp. 70-71; 133-134.
4 Cf. N. Spinosa, Pittura napoletana del Settecento dal Rococò al
Classicismo, Naples,1987, tab. 49.
5 Ibid., p. 140, n. 217, figs. 287-290.