The Virgin in Glory with Saint Januarius and Saint Francis of Paola

Francesco de Mura was the favourite pupil of Francesco Solimena, the dominant figure of Neapolitan painting in the first half of the 18th Century. A painter of great energy and intelligence, de Mura worked in Naples at a time of great opportunity, particularly because of the supply of royal commissions from the Bourbon court. In 1737, Queen Maria-Amalia of Saxony commissioned him to make two vast allegorical ceiling paintings for the Palazzo Reale, Naples. His reputation for palace decoration led to further patronage from the Kings of Sardinia in the Palazzo Reale, Turin, where his beautiful, classically inspired frescoes survive in pristine condition. But despite this aptitude for public painting, de Mura was also a portraitist and the creator of small-scale devotional works, such as the present lot. Presumably, the picture was made for a Neapolitan patron, since both Saints depicted appear to be closely associated with Naples.

We are grateful to Professor Nicola Spinosa and Professor Riccardo Lattuada for independently confirming the attribution, on examination of the original, and on the basis of photographs respectively. They both date this previously unrecorded picture to the 1740s.