NICOLA MALINCONICO (Naples, 1663 - 1726) St Nicholas of Bari Oil on canvas, 103.5X77.5 cm Provenance: Milan, private collection Formerly attributed to Luca Giordano, the painting was traced back to Nicola Malinconico's catalogue by Stefano Causa. The artist, according to De Dominici, was a pupil of Andrea Belvedere, but later devoted himself to studying the 'colouring and figures of Luca Giordano, and succeeded very well, serving him greatly with his usual freshness of colour, from which he painted such lively, and beautiful works, that some considered his colouring more vague than that of Giordano himself'. Indeed, in 1693 and 1694, Malinconico undertook one of the most significant commissions of his career, the cycle of paintings for the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo, for which he was called upon to replace Giordano (cf. F. Noris, in I pittori bergamaschi...Il Seicento, vol. IV, p. 167, card 11). The latter had sent a canvas depicting the Submersion of the Pharaoh to the Lombard city from Naples in 1682, obtaining unreserved approval and the entrusting, later disregarded, of the entire decoration, which he would then definitively renounce in order to move to the court of the King of Spain. Returning to the canvas under examination, it is placed in his maturity, when the painter evolved his style by looking at the works of Francesco Solimena and found comparisons with works of the first decade such as the Good Samaritan belonging to the Museum of Palazzo Pretorio in Prato. Reference bibliography: B. De Dominici, Vite dei pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani (1742-43), III, Naples 1844, pp. 295-297 N. Spinosa, Pittura Napoletana del Settecento, dal Barocco al Rococò, Naples 1986, p. 69 N. Spinosa, Il seguito di Luca Giordano a Napoli e in Italia, in Luca Giordano: 1634-1705, exhibition catalogue edited by N. Spinosa, Naples 2001, pp. 437-453