Lot 126: Michele Pagano (Naples circa 1685-1732)

An extensive landscape with travellers before a farmstead; and A wooded landscape with travellers crossing a wooden bridge
both signed and dated 'MICHELE PAGANO / P 1729' (lower right)
a pair, oil on canvas
102 x 127.5 cm. (40 1/8 x 50 2/8 in.)
(2)
in carved and gilded frames

Mostra della Pittura Napoletana del '600-'700-'800, Castelnuovo, Naples, March-June 1938, room XIV no. 2 and 6.

S. Ortolani, Mostra della Pittura Naplotana del '600-'700-'800, Naples, 1938, p.183 (ill. p. 184).
Dizionario Enciclopedico dei Pittori e Degli Incisori Italiani, Giorgio Mondadori e Associati, 1985, volume VIII, illustrated p.259.
N. Spinosa Pittura del Settecento dal Barocco al Rococco, Naples, 1993, p. 96

The present pair of paintings can be compared to the signed landscapes by Pagano in the Army Museum, Madrid, formerly in the Prado, and the Museo Correale, Sorrento. They represent at a point in Pagano's career when the artist had most likely seen examples of Joachim Franz Beich's landscapes, which in turn ultimately derive from Gaspard Dughet's work.

One of the most important Neapolitan landscape painters of the first half of the 18th century, Michele Pagano is recorded as training in the studio of Raimondo De Dominici, called il Maltese. As a young man, he enjoyed the patronage of Aurora Sanseverino, Duchess of Laurenzana, whose home in the city served as a meeting point for the artists and writers of 18th century Naples. His landscapes reveal his attention to detail, particularly in the vegetation and figures of the mid and foregrounds, along with a sensitive rendering of light in the distance. The artist's oeuvre, for the most part conserved in private collections, represents a progression in the tradition of landscape painting in Naples established by Salvator Rosa. Described by Sergio Ortolani as the first 'vero settecentista', his freshness of approach suggests Pagano's awareness of the most recent developments in landscape painting in the Rococo taste.

Collection of the Duchessa Quarto di Belgioso, Naples, 1918
Collection of The Marchese Giuseppe Ruffo dei Principi della Scaletta and thence by descent.