Studio of Gaspar van Wittel, called Vanvitelli

Laureati and Trezzani list eight versions of this view, all with considerable variations in both viewpoint and staffage¹. One of these, that formerly in the Torlonia collection in Rome, is signed and dated 1706. In some cases these were originally conceived as pendants to other Roman views, such as that formerly in the collections of the Dukes of Leeds in the 18th century, which was paired with a view of the Piazza del Popolo. The present picture is closest in composition to that formerly with Richard Green in London in which the view is taken from the garden of the Hospital di Santo Spirito and in which numerous figures relax on a terrace (probably imaginary) close to a fountain². Laureati dates this version to the last decade of the 17th Century.

1. G. Briganti, ed. L. Laureati and L. Trezzzani, Gaspar van Wittel, Milan 1996, pp. 182-85, nos. 141-148.
2. Laureati and Trezzani, op. cit., p. 184, no. 145, reproduced in colour.