Venus and Cupid sleeping in a landscape

Paolo de Matteis received his first artistic training in the workshop of Luca Giordano in Naples. He arrived in Rome before 1683, where he was pupil of Giovanni Maria Morandi and where the lessons of Giordano were modified by the elegance of the painting of Carlo Maratti. In Rome he became a protégé of the Spanish Ambassador Gaspar de Haro y Guzmán, 7th Marqués del Carpio, whom he followed to Naples when he became Viceroy in 1683. At this time he created a delicate, graceful style that broke with the vigour of the Baroque and made him a successful artist with an international reputation. He fulfilled commissions in Naples, Pistoia and Madrid, until he was invited to Paris, where he stayed from 1702 to 1705, working among others for the Dauphin. No work from the Parisian period survived, but the contact with the elegant art of 18th century Paris confirmed the direction his style had already taken. When Naples became part of the Austrian Empire, in 1707, he became one of the favourite artists of the new governors, receiving important commissions from leading members of the Austrian aristocracy, including Emperor Joseph I. In these years he was in touch with the most advanced intellectual circles in Europe and many, including Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, considered him the best painter in Italy. While painting allegorical, mythological and literary scenes for private international patrons, he also executed many work for churches, updating the Baroque decorative schemes with a delicate and airy touch. In the final years of his life de Matteis also made models for sculpture in silver.