Paolo De Matteis, John George Brown, Vittore Capaccio

Paolo De Matteis

Paolo De Matteis (Piano Vetrale, 9 February 1662 - Naples, 26 July 1728) was a painter Italian, active especially in the Kingdom of Naples in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century (Hobbes, pp.153).

His works can be found in Paris, Genoa, Naples, Cocentaina, Madrid, Genoa, as well as in Calabria and in important centers of southern Italy, such as Italy, Lecce, Cassino, Lucera or Gaeta, although some of them are of doubtful attribution.

Just in Cassino, in the famous Benedictine abbey, is preserved one of his most valuable works, the painting of 'The Assumption of the Virgin, escaped the ravages of war in the Second World War: for his full color, it represented a classic example of painting seventeenth century. Were lost instead of the paintings of the ' Immaculate Conception and ' Annunciation. In 1692 realized to the frescoes in the basins of the aisles, all lost in 1944.

Other works attributed to him are (Hobbes, pp.153):

Our Lady of Succour, oil on canvas, in the section of the Diocesan Museums of Ascoli Satriano

St. Gregory the Wonderworker, oil on canvas, Palazzo del Seminario of Lecce (1696)

Death of St. Nicholas (1707), oil on canvas, Church of St. Nicholas to the Charity of Naples

Our Lady of the Rosary (1707), oil on canvas, Archbishopric of Ascoli Satriano

St. Teresa of Avila (1717), Museum Carmelite Pastrana

Santa Maria del Carmine (1717), Museum Carmelite Pastrana

Virgen de Gracia. Madrid, Museo del Prado, bodegones Collecion de Meléndez

The Life of Francis Xavier of the Colegio Imperial de Madrid (1692)

Santa Maria Domenica, Basilica-Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace of Campaign

Adoration of the Shepherds, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art 

Erminia among the shepherds, 1715 ca., Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna 

Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine, 1712 ca., Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna 

Nativity and imprisonment of St. Jerome, oil on canvas, Sanctuary of Santa Maria di Pozzano of Castellammare di Stabia

Andromeda and Perseus, 1710 ca., Kress Collection, Fairfield (Picture)

The choice of Hercules, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Last Supper, 1720, Basilica of the Assumption, Castel di Sangro.

Jahel and Sisera, oil on canvas, 195 x 261 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Rouen.

St. Michael the Archangel, oil on canvas, Church of Santo Stefano in Capri

Lady of Mount Carmel between the souls in Purgatory, oil on canvas, Church of Santo Stefano in Capri

Two of his works have been recently included in the exhibition Metamorphosis of myth. Baroque painting in Naples, Genoa and Venice, set up in 2003 at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa.

John George Brown

Born into a poor family in Durham, England, John George Brown earned a reputation as one of 19th-century America's most skilled painters of children, especially entrepreneurial, cheerful street urchins who earned a pittance as boot blacks, newspaper vendors, etc. In some circles, he was dubbed the "Boot Black Raphael" because of the glowing faces of his child figures and his skill of execution. His paintings of these sympathy-arousing children were so popular in a Victorian era of increased industrialization that he became rich from painting sales as well as royalties from lithographs (Birmingham Museum of Art, pp. 129).

John George Brown's sentimentalized portrayals of street urchins, reproduced by the thousands, made him the richest and most celebrated genre painter in turn-of-the-century America. Born in Durham, England in 1831, Brown studied art in England and Scotland before coming to America in 1853. He was a glassblower in Brooklyn, and a student at the National Academy of Design in New York City. He opened a studio there in 1860, when his painting "His First Cigar" launched his national reputation. Brown exploited his considerable talent to supply the Victorian taste for his specialty-adept pictures of young white shoe shiners, vendors and ...