Francesco Solimena settled in Naples in 1674 and became the unchallenged head of the Neapolitan school of painting during the first half of the 1700s. He modeled his painting on the exuberant Baroque style of his predecessor, Luca Giordano, modified by the classical tendencies of Roman decorator Pietro da Cortona. The brownish shadows that are such an identifiable element of Solimena's style are i
