CONCA, SEBASTIANO. - Painter, born at Gaeta on 8 Jan. 1679 (or, according to others, 1676 or 1680), and died at Napoli in 1764. A pupil of Solimena at Napoli, he in turn conducted a school in Roma, where from 1706 he carried out the greater part of his activity and propagated his master’s manner. There, however, especially through contact with the art of Maratta, his painting often grew cold in the pursuit of an academic perfection, toward which he was also driven by the criticisms levelled at him for the incorrectness of his drawing.
In Roma he worked extensively, receiving commissions even from Filippo V of Spain, from the sovereigns of Poland, Portugal, and Sardegna, and from the archbishop of Cologne, as well as from Pope Clemente XI. Admitted in 1719 to the Accademia di S. Luca (of which he was president in 1729-32 and 1739-41), in 1725 he won admiration for the decoration of the ceiling of S. Cecilia in Trastevere; but his greatest fame came from the other ceiling that he frescoed after his return to Napoli, in 1751, in the church of S. Chiara, for which he was acclaimed as one of the greatest Neapolitan decorators of the eighteenth century. His works are scattered among many churches and collections in Roma, Napoli, Gaeta, Urbino, Cagli, Pisa, Loreto, Torino, Palermo, as well as in many foreign galleries and collections.