TOMMASO RUIZ
(active in Naples around the mid 18th Century)
The Largo di Palazzo, Naples, with the Nocturnal Celebrations on 19 September 1740 for the Baptism of the Infanta Reale Maria Isabella, and the macchina di cuccagna designed by Ferdinando Sanfelice
Signed twice and inscribed 'Feste e cucagnia fatti in Napoli il di 19. 9.br 1740. Per il Battesimo dell'Infante / Vista di notte. Tomasz Ruiz F.' (lower left) and 'Tomasz Ruiz F.' (lower right)
Oil on copper
41 x 73.5 cm
Hitherto unrecorded, this is a nocturnal version of Ruiz's depiction of the daytime part of the same celebrations (Private Collection, Naples), which is similarly inscribed and is Ruiz's best known work.1 The two paintings are of the same size and may well have been conceived as pendants.
Maria Isabella was the first of thirteen children born to King Charles VII of Naples, from 1759 King Charles III of Spain, and the Queen Consort Maria Amalia of Saxony, of whom only eight reached adulthood. Christened Maria Isabel Antonietta de Padua Francisca Januaria Francisca de Paula Juana Nepomucena Josefina Onesifora, she was born on 6 September 1740 at the Royal Palace of Portici outside Naples, which had been begun in 1738, but died in Naples on 2 November 1742. Due to being a male line descendant of Philip V of Spain, who was her paternal grandfather, she was an Infanta of Spain.
The appearance of Ferdinando Sanfelice's temporary structures for the celebrations is also known from two engravings by Antonio Baldi.2
1. L. Salerno, I pittori di vedute in Italia (1580-1830), Rome, 1991, p. 394, fig. S.16 b; exhibited Naples, Castel Sant'Elmo, All'ombra del Vesuvio: Napoli nella veduta europea dal Quattrocento all'Ottocento, 12 May - 29 July 1990, p. 421, illustrated p. 227 (catalogue entry by Mariella Utili); exhibited Naples, Palazzo Reale, Capolavori in festa: Effimero barocco a Largo di Palazzo (1683-1759), 20 December 1997 - 15 March 1998, p. 173, no. 1.18, illustrated in colour p. 174 (catalogue entry by Riccardo Lattuada).
2. Ibid., pp. 220-1, nos. 3.9 and 3.10, both illustrated.