Giovanni Paolo Panini

Charles Carstairs (d. 1928), Paris;
His sister, Maria Carstairs Brooks;
By whose estate sold ('Property from the Estate of Maria Carstairs Brooks'), New York, Parke-Bernet, 20 May 1971, lot 65 (sold with its pendant, see note, for $40,000), to Leger Galleries;
With Leger Galleries, London;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 2 July 1976, lot 7;
Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Gentleman'), London, Christie's, 24 May 1991, lot 83;
There purchased by the present collector.

London, Leger Galleries, Old Master Exhibition, 3-27 May 1972, no. 2, reproduced in color, plate VII.

F. Arisi, Gian Paolo Panini e i fasti della Roma del'700, Rome 1986, p. 371, cat. no. 278, reproduced, and under cat. no. 279, and p. 426, under cat. no. 392;
Apollo, March 1972 (advertisement for Leger Galleries).

For a high resolution digital image, please refer to the online catalogue at Sothebys.com or contact a member of the Old Master Paintings department. The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is in very good condition. The canvas has been lined. There are hardly any retouches of note either in the sky or in the architecture, and this alone is unusual. There has been no abrasion to any of the profiles of the ruins as they extend into the sky. We would recommend that the varnish be freshened slightly, and then the picture could be hung as is.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Giovanni Paolo Panini was the foremost painter of vedute in Rome during the second half of the 18^th century. This magnificent painting was created in a period of feverish activity for the artist which resulted in the production of some of his best works.  This painting has a pendant, Capriccio of Classical Ruins with the Maison Carrée at Nîmes, the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli, the Pont du Gard Near Nîmes and the Borghese Vase, also signed and dated 1739.  Although the two paintings were together in the early twentieth century while in the collection of the Carstairs family (see Provenance) and were purchased as a pair by Leger Galleries in 1971, they were subsequently separated and entered different private collections.¹ 

Panini received his early artistic training in Piacenza.  There, he  studied under the quadraturisti Giuseppe Natali and Andrea Galluzzi and also with the stage designer Francesco Galli-Bibiena.  Natali and Galluzzi specialized in the decoration of walls and ceilings with illusionistic architectural renderings, creating trompe l'oeil effects of space extending beyond the room's actual walls.  Following their example, Panini mastered issues of perspective, while from Galli-Bibiena the young artist learnt the principles of set design, treating his paintings as stage sets on which compositional elements could be carefully arranged for dramatic effect for the remainder of his career. 

After moving to Rome, Panini was primarily occupied during the 1710s and 20s painting decorative frescoes in the illusionistic style he had learned in Piacenza.  He soon became a popular and much sought-after artist working for some of the most illustrious patrons in the city, including Innocent XIII, for whom he decorated the mezzanine apartment of the Palazzo Quirinale.² Although he had already achieved a measure of success, Panini did not fall into a static style during this period.  He was far too intelligent and curious an artist to fail to be stimulated by the other artistic currents in Rome and his style began to develop in response to what he saw, culminating in his easel works of the 1730s and 40s.  His mature manner developed through an assimilation of a variety of influences, most notably his exposure to the work of Gaspare Vanvitelli, another master of Roman vedute.  Panini adopted the older artist's attention to the minute details of Roman topography, which he was then able to manipulate effectively in his own compositions.  Of equal importance to Panini's development were the works of Salvator Rosa from whom he learnt how the inclusion of spirited figures could add vitality to a composition, and Giovanni Ghisolfi, whose capricci paintings inspired him to move away from merely rendering scenes to creating them in his imagination.

The present painting is a excellent example of how Panini incorporated all these different influences and interpreted them in his own unique and impressive fashion, creating a dynamic work of unrivalled grandeur.  Most of the architectural elements, such as the Colosseum in the back left, the Temple of Antonius and Faustina seen front right, the Basilica of Maxentius in the back right, and the Temple of Venus and Rome on a hill in the far right distance are accurate depictions of real sites; however, Panini has removed them from their natural context and positioned them in his own order across the panoramic canvas.  Although the Colosseum is the focal point, the two temples in the foreground act as an architectural repoussoir directing the viewer's gaze to the famous amphitheatre and the landscape beyond.  Though much of the architecture is accurately and recognizably rendered, Panini has imaginatively reconstructed some elements that have been lost:  the Temple of Antonius and Faustina, for example, was in a much more ruined state in the early eighteenth century.  Into this carefully constructed and balanced setting Panini has inserted figures and antique sculpture to enliven the composition.  In the left foreground a bearded man dressed in a toga is disclaiming to the Farnese Hercules, while in the right foreground a washerwoman and her companion relax momentarily by a fountain that flows from a sculpted relief of a sacrifice.  There is a beautiful drawing for this washerwoman in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, which shows how carefully Panini considered the execution of these figures.

Panini obviously considered the present lot and its pendant to be among his more successful compositions as there is another autograph pair, in square format and executed with studio assistance, in an American private collection.³  Additionally, this painting and its pendant were admired by a later copyist whose replicas are now in a private Roman collection.⁴ As is often the case, Panini recombined motifs from both paintings in a single canvas, dated a decade later than the present work and formerly in the Palkse collection.⁵

1.  For the pendant, see Arisi, op,cit, p. 371, cat. no. 279 reproduced; the current owner acquired the present lot in 1991 and when its pendant came up at auction only four years later in 1995, he was able to reunite them; the pendant remains in the current owner's collection.
2.  Ibid., p. 294-5, cat. no. 145, reproduced.
3.  Ibid., p. 371, under cat. no. 278.
4.  Ibid.
5.  Ibid., p. 426, cat. no. 392, reproduced.