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 Sebastiano Conca was the son of Erasmo Conca and Caterina de Iorio and the eldest of ten
children. According to Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri, when very
young he was a pupil of Luca Giordano, but the only teacher who can be
assigned to him with certainty is Francesco Solimena. Conca probably
entered his studio in Naples c. 1693 and in 1703 assisted him in
painting decorative frescoes for the abbey of Montecassino. In 1706 (de
Dominici) or perhaps 1707 (Pio) Conca moved to Rome. He remained there
for 45 years but never lost touch with Gaeta, to which he often
returned. In Rome, inspired by the art of Michelangelo, Raphael and the
Carracci, he moved away from Solimena and developed a greater
classicism, indebted to Carlo Maratti. Works dating from his first ten
years in Rome include the Adoration of the Magi (1707; Tours, Musee
Beaux-Arts), the Allegory of Painting, the Allegory of Music (both Rome, Galleria Spada) and a St Bartholomew (untraced).
The last-named work was commissioned for his own collection by
Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, who was also the patron of Francesco
Trevisani; Conca’s spontaneous and lyrical style attracted intellectuals
like Ottoboni, whose taste was influenced by the Society of Arcadia.
Through Ottoboni, Conca won the favour of the Roman Curia. Cardinal
Tommaso Maria Ferrari (1647–1716) commissioned altarpieces of the Vision of St Dominic (1714) and Scenes from the Life of St Dominic (1715) for the church of S Clemente, Rome. Pope Clement XI assigned to him a fresco of the Miracle of St Clement, one of a series of frescoes of the saint’s life above the nave arcade in the same church, and an oval medallion of Jeremiah
(1718) in S Giovanni Laterano, Rome. This led to a commission for the
decoration of the Palazzo de Carolis, Rome, where he worked with the
foremost artists of the time. In 1719 he made a pilgrimage to
Montecassino.
For the Piedmontese royal house of Savoy, through the offices of
Filippo Juvarra, who had been architect and scenographer to Cardinal
Ottoboni, Conca executed paintings for the royal hunting lodge, the
Venaria Reale (1721–4), for the church of the Superga (1726) and for the
Palazzo Reale, Turin. Between 1721 and 1724 he frescoed the vault of S
Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome, with the Coronation of St Cecilia.
This important commission was procured for him by Cardinal Francesco
Acquaviva d’Aragona (1665–1725), the Spanish ambassador, who sent the
cartoons to Queen Elizabeth of Spain, and the modello to her uncle,
Francis, Duke of Parma. In this large composition Conca toned down the
magniloquent exuberance of the Baroque and created a lighter and more
balanced composition that is fully Rococo in spirit.
In 1725 the Duke of Parma, impressed with Conca’s talent, gave him a
studio in the Palazzo Farnese, Rome, and there Conca established his
Accademia del Nudo which, since c. 1710, had attracted many followers,
from as far afield as France, Germany and Spain. Among the most
outstanding of the pupils who attended the academy were Pompeo Girolamo
Batoni, Corrado Giaquinto and Anton Raphael Mengs. Several printmakers
also worked within the academy, including the Swiss Johann Jakob I Frey
and the better-known Giuseppe Vasi (later Piranesi’s teacher). Through
their engravings these artists helped to publicize and spread Conca’s
style. Through the offices of Cardinal Marco Cornelio Bentivoglio
d’Aragona (1668–1732) Conca won the patronage of the Bourbon family, for
whom in 1727 he designed a firework display.
The 1730s marked the climax of Conca’s long and brilliantly
successful career. His output was prodigious, and his altarpieces were
sent to Palermo, Messina, Macerata, Turin, Pisa, Spoleto and Gaeta. He
also produced many easel paintings (e.g. Aeneas Descending to the Underworld,
Florence, Uffizi), which were sought after by private collectors, such
as Cardinal Tommaso Ruffo (1663–1753), and by foreign travellers passing
through Italy, who carried them to France, Spain, Portugal, Poland,
Germany and Austria. These are lyrical Rococo works, distinguished by
their spontaneous brushwork and liquid colours. From 1729 to 1732 Conca
was Principe of the Accademia di S Luca (a post that he also held from
1739 to 1742). In 1731 he contributed financially to the decoration of a
chapel in the church of SS Martina e Luca, which was in the possession
of the Accademia. He also wrote a theoretical work for the Accademia,
the Ammonimenti (1738–9; see 1981 exh. cat., pp. 396–8), which
contained moral and artistic precepts for young men intending to become
painters. In 1731–2 he made a successful journey to Tuscany. In
Florence, in 1731, he painted a portrait of the Infante Don Carlos (untraced) for the Bourbon family and also an overwhelmingly grandiose fresco, the Pool of Bethesda, in the church of the Ospedale della Scala, Siena. This develops the Rococo style of the Coronation of St Cecilia,
and the softness and transparency of the colour suggest both the
influence of Solimena and of Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari and Benedetto
Luti.
Conca received an unceasing flow of commissions both in Italy and
abroad. For Cardinal Anton Felice Chigi-Zondadari (1665–1737) he painted
the Meeting with Philip V (c. 1730; Rome, Palazzo Corsini).
Juvarra, while employed by King Philip V of Spain on the reconstruction
of the Palacio de la Granja in Segovia, invited him to Spain to carry
out the decoration together with other famous artists. Conca declined,
but in 1735 he sent his monumental painting of Alexander Sacrificing in Solomon’s Temple (La Granja de San Ildefonso, Palacio Real).
Between 1738 and 1740 he produced a series of canvases on allegorical subjects—the Allegory of Liguria, Temperance, Justice, Fortitude and Prudence — for the Palazzo Lomellini Doria in Genoa. In 1740 he signed and dated an altarpiece for SS Martina e Luca, Rome, of the Assumption of the Virgin and St Sebastian. Conca painted numerous pictures of the Virgin and Child, varying the usual pyramidal scheme. Noteworthy among these are the Virgin Enthroned, with Child, SS John and Carlo Borromeo and Angels (1738; Ascoli Piceno) and the Virgin
(1746; Spoleto). Together with Corrado Giaquinto he worked in the Ruffo
Chapel in SS Lorenzo e Damaso in Rome, where (before 1743) he painted
the Virgin and Saints. This was his last commission associated
with Cardinal Ottoboni. In the 1740s Conca worked with his pupils for
the Camilliani family and himself painted the vast frescoes (1744) of
the chapel of S Camillo de Lellis in S Maria Maddalena, Rome. In 1747 he
frescoed the ceiling of Cardinal Neri Corsini’s library (Rome,
Biblioteca Corsini) with the Allegory of the Sciences and in 1749 painted frescoes (destr.) at Montecassino.
When Benedict XIV became pope, commissions became scarcer, and this
may have been one of the reasons why Conca went to Naples c. 1752.
Another reason, perhaps, was that he suffered from the competition of
the new generation of artists, and his style began to seem too mannered.
In Naples Conca was entrusted with important decorative commissions. In
this period, although the forms in his works are clearly defined, he
still produced lavishly theatrical works. Between 1752 and 1754 he
painted frescoes in S Chiara (destr. World War II), in which he employed
dazzling effects of illusionism. He established himself in Gaeta, but
shortly afterwards, in 1755, he returned again to Naples to complete the
cycle in S Chiara and to execute the Meeting between the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon
in the vestibule of the church. Through the mediation of Luigi
Vanvitelli he was then appointed to paint five canvases for the Palatina
Chapel at Caserta (1756, 1759; destr.). Conca was influenced by
Vanvitelli’s academic manner and reacted against the empty rhetoric of
the Baroque. The artist’s late work declined in quality and became
rather repetitive (1981 exh. cat., pp. 74–86). Canvases of this period
spread to Sicily and to various parts of the Bourbon kingdom. His last
works were the paintings for the Benedictines of Aversa (1761) and the
scenes from the Life of St Francis of Paola, commissioned between 1762
and 1763 by the Frati Minori of S Maria di Pozzano in Castellamare.
Sebastiano had a younger brother, Francesco (b 1698), who was also a
painter, and who is known to have joined Sebastiano in Rome in 1713. A
cousin, Giovanni Conca (b c. 1690) worked in Rome and Turin. His works
include two scenes from the Life of the Virgin (Rome, S Maria della Scala) and the Death of St Joseph
(1754; Rome, S Maria della Luce). Giovanni’s son, Tommaso (1734–1822),
was a more distinguished artist, best known for his decoration of the
Villa Borghese, Rome, commissioned by Prince Marcantonio Borghese, which
includes the Sacrifice of Silenus (1776) and the Dance of the Satyrs (1778), both in the Sala del Fauno Danzante.
Conca is represented in the following collections; Indianapolis
Museum of Art, Indiana; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston; Courtauld Institute of Art, London; Dulwich Picture
Gallery, London; Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington; Le Musée
des Beaux-Arts de Tours, France; Manchester City Art Gallery, UK; Musée
des Augustins, Toulouse, France; National Gallery of Armenia; Ringling
Museum of Art, Florida; Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri; Smithsonian
American Art Museum, Washington D.C., amongst others.
Source:
Sphinx Fine Art
http://www.sphinxfineart.com/Conca-Sebastiano-DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=45&tabindex=44&artistid=18564
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