Lot Essay
Giacomo del Po was the son of Pietro del Po, a noted painter and engraver who was active in Naples from 1644-7. Giacomo travelled with his father to Rome in 1647 but it was not until his relocation to Naples in 1683 that his work fully developed. He was a prolific artist who, after the death of Luca Giordano in 1705, was in great demand executing commissions for numerous patrons including an Assunta for S. Pietro a Maiella and circa 1708 the Triumph of Saint John of the Cross as well as other paintings for the church of S. Teresa agli Studi.
The present works can be dated to his maturity and display the extravagant, frenetic style which he developed after 1690, a time when he became increasingly involved in secular schemes for the palazzi of the nobility including those in the Palazzo De Matteis. They can be compared to two paintings whose subject is taken from John Milton's Paradise Lost, formerly in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul H. Ganz, New York (see J.T. Spike, Italian Baroque Paintings from New York Private Collections, 1980, pp.88-9, nos. 34-5) which Vitzthum compares with the paintings by del Po in S. Teresa agli Studi of 1708 and his work in the Sacristy of S. Domenico Maggiore, Naples, of 1712.
The present works can be dated to his maturity and display the extravagant, frenetic style which he developed after 1690, a time when he became increasingly involved in secular schemes for the palazzi of the nobility including those in the Palazzo De Matteis. They can be compared to two paintings whose subject is taken from John Milton's Paradise Lost, formerly in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul H. Ganz, New York (see J.T. Spike, Italian Baroque Paintings from New York Private Collections, 1980, pp.88-9, nos. 34-5) which Vitzthum compares with the paintings by del Po in S. Teresa agli Studi of 1708 and his work in the Sacristy of S. Domenico Maggiore, Naples, of 1712.