Jacopo Cestaro (Bagnoli Irpino, 1718 - Napoli, 1778) "The triumph of Aphrodite accompanied by Eros and other divinities on Olympus". Oil on canvas. 80 x 51.5 cm. Cestaro is considered to be one of the foremost exponents of the school of Francesco Solimena. His work, characterised by Baroque and Neo-Baroque styles, is infused with a highly refined, worldly air and great creative freedom. One of his masterpieces is the fresco which he painted in the Church of San Filippo e San Giacomo in Naples, created between 1757 and 1759. Attached is a certificate from Prof. Nicola Spinosa (February, 2024), to whom we are grateful for the identification of this work. From the certificate, we summarize the following: This is a sketch for a large and complex composition to be executed as a fresco or on canvas, hitherto unidentified and, in fact, probably never completed, as is already known to have happened with other similar cases. Jacopo Cestaro was trained in the Neapolitan workshop of Francesco Solimena, in the last years of the master's life, establishing himself by the mid-eighteenth century as an acclaimed artist and even as a brilliant alternative to the already famous Francesco de Muro. The influence of his master Solimena, says Spinosa, is evident when comparing this painting with the "Triumph of the Dominican Order", a fresco painted in 1707 by Solimena inside the dome of the sacristy of the Neapolitan basilica San Domenico Maggiore. This marvelous sketch is its heir, due to the way both artworks are resolved compositionally. The similarities between the sketch we have here and other known sketches by Cestaro for compositions of sacred or secular themes, biblical, evangelical, allegorical or of various episodes in the history of Rome, are remarkable. The reasons given by Spinosa to demonstrate the authorship of Cestaro, in relation to these sketches, are: the dense and vibrant pictorial "stains", for the compositional scheme and for the skillful formal definition of each figure, among others. Here are some examples: "The Triumph of Hercules", in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Augsburg; the "Allegory of Winter", in a private Parisian collection; and, especially, the "Allegory of conjugal love", in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva. These paintings, this one and others in Spinosa's publication, 1987 (1993), constitute a corpus of remarkable quality that bears witness to the transition of Neapolitan painting from late Baroque to Rococo. Reference bibliography: - Spinosa, Nicola (1987, second ed.: 1993). "Pittura napoletana del Settecento. Electa Napoli.