Lot Essay
A study for the picture commissioned by Raimondo Buonaccorsi for his palace in Macerata, known through a ricordo formerly in the Scholz-Forni collection in Hamburg, sold at Christie's, 9 July 1982, lot 66, illustrated, which will be offered in these Rooms on 7 July 1995, F. Bologna, Francesco Solimena, Naples, 1958, p. 248, fig. 209.
Raimondo Buonaccorsi (1669-1743) was from a noble family from Macerata, in the Marches. Very little his known about is life other than that he built one of the most sumptuous palace outside Rome. The palace, designed by the Roman architect Giovanni Battista Contini, was ready to be decorated as early as 1707. Buonaccorsi commissioned frescoes on the theme of the Aeneid from two Bolognese painters, Carlo Antonio Rambaldi and Antonio Dardani, and probably a little later asked some more renowned painters to realise paintings for the frescoed gallery. Solimena painted the Hunt of Dido and Aeneas and Luigi Garzi a Venus in the Forge of Vulcan; Gambarini, Franceschini, Lazzarini and Balestra also worked for the gallery, F. Haskell, Patrons and Painters, New Haven and London, 1980, pp. 223-5, pl. 33b.
A letter from Buonaccorsi, dated 6 July 1714, attests that Solimena's picture was placed in the gallery by that date. The fame of the picture was so immediate that when Giovanni Gioseffo dal Sole in Bologna heard of the painting, he came to Macerata to see the composition.
The scene describes the young Aeneas rescued by Dido from the storm created on Juno's instructions that the two might fall in love, hence the presence of Cupid aiming an arrow at him. There are very few differences in composition between the ricordo and the present drawing: the figure with a stag in the left foreground has been replaced by a man blowing a horn, and the gesture of Dido in the painting is more expressive.
Bologna mentions a drawing of this composition in a collection in Aversa, F. Bologna, Solimena al Palazzo Reale di Napoli per le nozze di Carlo di Borbone, Prospecttiva, 1979, p. 65.
Raimondo Buonaccorsi (1669-1743) was from a noble family from Macerata, in the Marches. Very little his known about is life other than that he built one of the most sumptuous palace outside Rome. The palace, designed by the Roman architect Giovanni Battista Contini, was ready to be decorated as early as 1707. Buonaccorsi commissioned frescoes on the theme of the Aeneid from two Bolognese painters, Carlo Antonio Rambaldi and Antonio Dardani, and probably a little later asked some more renowned painters to realise paintings for the frescoed gallery. Solimena painted the Hunt of Dido and Aeneas and Luigi Garzi a Venus in the Forge of Vulcan; Gambarini, Franceschini, Lazzarini and Balestra also worked for the gallery, F. Haskell, Patrons and Painters, New Haven and London, 1980, pp. 223-5, pl. 33b.
A letter from Buonaccorsi, dated 6 July 1714, attests that Solimena's picture was placed in the gallery by that date. The fame of the picture was so immediate that when Giovanni Gioseffo dal Sole in Bologna heard of the painting, he came to Macerata to see the composition.
The scene describes the young Aeneas rescued by Dido from the storm created on Juno's instructions that the two might fall in love, hence the presence of Cupid aiming an arrow at him. There are very few differences in composition between the ricordo and the present drawing: the figure with a stag in the left foreground has been replaced by a man blowing a horn, and the gesture of Dido in the painting is more expressive.
Bologna mentions a drawing of this composition in a collection in Aversa, F. Bologna, Solimena al Palazzo Reale di Napoli per le nozze di Carlo di Borbone, Prospecttiva, 1979, p. 65.