(Naples active mid-17th Century)
An architectural capriccio with figures in front of a portico,
monogrammed and dated lower right: ADM 1647,
oil on canvas, 106.5 x 131.2 cm, framed

We are grateful to David Marshall for endorsing the attribution in full and for his help in compiling the following catalogue note.

This is the first signed painting by an artist who, in his lifetime, enjoyed considerable success, but who was only known to art history through contemporary sources or inventories. David Marshall: “Antonio di Michele has only emerged from obscurity with this painting, which bears a monogram which can be read as ADM, and the date 1647. The style of the monogram is similar to the one used by Viviano Codazzi, who was active in Naples at this time, leaving for Rome in 1648. The corpus of di Michele has been conflated with that of Ascanio Luciano, who, like di Michele, emerged from Codazzi’s workshop in Naples in the late 1640s. Di Michele appears in numerous Neapolitan inventories as a painter of ‘prospettive’, that is, architectural pieces. An important instance is an item referring to a set of four paintings in the collection of Alvaro della Quadra, Duke of Limatola, in 1694. These consisted of two pairs, which were probably not always a set of four, one consisting of a Burning of Troy and a Belshazzar’s Feast by ‘Monsù Desiderio’ (François de Nomé), while the other two, almost certainly a pair, were a ‘prospettiva’ (architectural piece) by Viviano Codazzi and his usual collaborator Domenico Gargiulo, and a ‘prospettiva’ by Antonio di Michele with figures by Antonio de Bellis. ‘Quattro quadri di prospettive con cornici indorate uno con l’ingendio di Troia, altro con la cena de Re Baldassarre, originali tutti e due di Monsù Desiderio altro con l’adorazione de Maggi, originali ciò è la figura di Micco Spataro, e la prospettiva del Viviani e l’altro di veduta originale ciò è le figure di Ant.nio de Bellis, e la prospettiva d’Antonio de Michele’ (see Getty Provenance Index, Archival Document I-163 (Quadra), item 0011d). Other works by di Michele are described in inventories as having figures by Gargiulo.”

The figures in the present painting are certainly in the style of Gargiulo, and might be by him, though David Marshall notes that his figures were often pastiched by architectural painters. Another interesting item is from the inventory of Dottore Pompilio Gagliano, Naples, dated 10 October 1699, which included an architectural piece by Niccolò Codazzi and Giovanni Battista Beinaschi paired with a Solomon and Queen Esther and Solomon by Antonio di Michele (Tonno di Michele) with figures by Domenico Gargiulo, both measuring about 210 x 157 cm: “Due prospettive di palmi 8 e 6, una mano di Nicola Codazzo con le figurine di Giovanni Battista Benazzo con l’Istoria della presentazione de Maggi con cornice liscia indorata, nell’altro prospettiva mano di Tonno di Michele con figurine et istoria di Salomone con la Regina Ester mano di Micco Spataro con cornice liscia Bianca” (Getty Provenance index, inventory no. 242, item 95). Works by di Michele and Gargiulo were also in the Capecelatro Collection.