Oil painting on canvas depicting the Adoration of the Shepherds, Alessio D'Elia (San Cipriano ...

Oil painting on canvas depicting the Adoration of the Shepherds, Alessio D'Elia (San Cipriano Picentino 1718 Post 1770). Cm 66,5x127. Attribution by Prof. Nicola Spinosa - Finarte Auction House, Auction Minerva.
The painting, allegedly by the painter Alessio D'Elia by art historian Nicola Spinosa, could be placed at the mid-eighteenth century, the artistic wake of Maestro Francesco de Mura.
D'Elia was a very popular artist of frescoes created especially for important ecclesiastical commissions, while we find his paintings in many churches in Rome and Naples.
Distinctive features of his style are the compositional mastery and theatrical wisdom, particularly evident in this painting.
Compared to his master style, in general, and in particular here, they will reveal subtle differences in character, including the joyful vein and folk, apparent in plump faces, in the minute of the shepherds mouths and in an airy dynamism of the bottom, which attenuates ancestry otherwise more classical and monumental.
The successful composition reveals, at the first impact, choral harmony inspired by the great synergy of the multitude of shapes and elements, all also defined in the most minute detail.
Along the diagonal Amplified majestic woman back draped figure, it unfolds a joyous procession of children, young girls and young shepherds that converge towards the Holy Family, arranged on a symbolic stand of ancient Roman ruins, on which rests gently steps the eucaristico lamb , the embodiment of gentleness and Innocence.
The pictorial gesture reveals high and natural, with no jamming and hardness, so confident and expressive that it looks like the work painted in fresco.
In the spirit of the more mature Neapolitan Rococo, the figures of angels hover, light and ethereal, in a harmonious triumph.