FEDELE FISCHETTI | Allegory of Spring

In the family of the present owners for at least two generations.

N. Spinosa, Pittura Napoletana del Settecento dal Rococò al Classicismo, Naples 1986/87, vol. II, p. 140, cat. no. 215, reproduced p. 321, fig. 284.

Spinosa dates this bozzetto to the 1780s, Fischetti's mature period, during which the artist was demonstrating himself to be a brilliant decorator, as proven in his fresco cycles for the villas and palaces of the Neapolitan nobility and for the Bourbon court of Ferdinand IV. This bozzetto would have served as a preparatory work for a ceiling fresco(1) of the same composition in the Palazzo Caracciolo di Torella, a vast 18th century palazzo situated in the waterfront district of Chiaia in central Naples.

1 See Spinosa 1986/87, p. 140, cat. no. 215, reproduced p. 321, fig. 285.