Lot Essay
Compare a drawing of the same subject signed and dated 1693 in the Albertina, Vienna. The drawing and the present compostion can also be compared to the central figure group in 'The Assumption with Salomon and the Queen of Sheba' in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, a modelloRfor a destroyed fresco by de Matteis for the cupola of Il Gesù Nuovo in Naples dateable to C.1713 (see N. Spinosa, Pittura Napoletana del Settecento dal Barocco al Rococò, 1986, p. 136, no. 135, fig. 153)