(Naples 1663–1714 Nola)
A pair of antique architectural capriccios with numerous figures,
oil on canvas, each 75 x 93.5 cm, framed, a pair (2)

We are grateful to Nicola Spinosa for endorsing the attribution of the present paintings in full. Spinosa compares the two paintings with a very similar but smaller pair, sold at Christie’s, London, on 8 December 2006 as lot 136 (sold for 48,000 British pounds).

“Gennaro’s paintings invented a variety of architectural ruins and other magnificent constructions and created imaginary underground places and prisons with horrible appearances,” writes Bernardo de Domenici in his 1743 Vite de Pittore, Scultori, ed Architetti Napoletani. Greco was highly esteemed in his lifetime. De Domenici titles a chapter “Notizie de Gennaro Greco…,” and follows the title with a number of apparently lesser artists, including Leonardo Coccorante, who is well known today.
When he was a child, Greco’s face was horribly disfigured in a fire and for the rest of his life he was called Il Mascacotta, translates as “cooked face”. Despite his appearance the apparently prosperous Greco had three young, beautiful wives, and a multitude of sons, including Vincenza, who became a painter. A student of Andrea Pozzo’s 1693 treatise on architectural perspective – Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum – Greco’s earliest work involved painting ornament, temporary stages for religious celebrations, as well as perspectival frameworks for other artists’ figural projects. Greco’s mature work, of which the examples here are characteristic, focuses on very carefully rendered views of imaginary ruins – vedute ideate – often set by a bay with highly detailed ships and other structures beyond.
The present pair is remarkable for its delicate, soft colouring and great precision. The friezes are depicted with meticulous attention to the scrolls and figures of the relief. Greco’s typical colours of mellow beige, yellows, greens, and blues are employed here with great effect.
In 1714, while at work on the vault of a country house chapel in Nola near Naples, Greco fell from a high scaffolding to his death. Greco’s paintings are included in the collections of the Castle Sforzesco in Milan, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen, and at Kronberg Castle, Denmark (ill. in G. Sestieri, Il Capriccio Architettonico: in Italia nel XVII e XVIII secolo, Rome 2015, vol. II, fig. 31, p. 212).