Francesco Solimena settled in Naples in 1674 and came to dominate the Neapolitan school of painting during the first half of the 1700s. Combining the Baroque exuberance of his predecessor Luca Giordano with the classicism of the Roman painter Pietro da Cortona and the distinctive brown shadows of Giovanni Lanfranco and Mattia Preti, Solimena created highly theatrical compositions which were hugely popular with the most exalted patrons across Europe, earning the artist great fame and fortune. Solimena established an academy of painting, which became a centre of Neapolitan artistic life, training many young painters, including Sebastiano Conca.