Fedele Fischetti (Napoli, 1732 - 1792), Attributed to
Fedele Fischetti was a Neapolitan painter of the Neoclassical period. He studied under Giuseppe Bonito (1707-1789) and other mid-eighteenth-century masters of the barochetto (a softer, more tender and graceful evolution from the baroque art of the seventeenth century, much closer to rococo). As the eighteenth-century progressed, Fischetti adopted a more classical style, following the trend towards Neoclassicism in Rome from artists like Pompeo Batoni (1708-1787) and Angelica Kauffman (1741-1807).
Fischetti received many prestigious commissions throughout his career in Naples. He is famous for his grand frescoes adorning many Neapolitan palazzos: graceful treatments of mythological subjects such as his Summer with Ceres and Proserpine and Winter with Boreas Abducting Orithyia in the Royal Palace of Caserta. But Fischetti was also a master of small-scale, decorative works on gilded wood, depicting mythological subjects in an elegant neoclassicism (Eros Defeating War, Mercury and Psyche, The Toilet of Venus). These paintings usually adorned the gilded, wooden panels on furnitures such as room screens, cabinets, sedan chairs, or even chariots. Our Rape of Europa shares many similarities with these decorative pictures: in delicate style and ornate elegance as well as in the playful treatment of mythological subjects.
Bibliography:
Bertozzi, Francesca, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, ed. by A. M. Ghisalberti and M. Pavan, 100 vols (Roma, 1960), XLVIII
Spinosa, Nicola, Pittura Napoletana del Settecento: dal Rococò al Classicismo (Napoli: Electa, 1987)
