Hendrik Frans van Lint, called Studio Antwerp 1684 - 1763 Rome

These paintings, which appear to be unrecorded and hitherto unknown, are late works by the artist, executed just six years before he died. Van Lint was one of the most prolific vedutisti working in Rome during the first half of the 18^th Century, and the high degree of topographical accuracy in his pictures combined with the harmonious viewpoints he adopts, have led him to be regarded as one of the most accomplished painters of his time in the genre. Though Van Lint was born in Antwerp, son of the history-painter Pieter van Lint, he travelled to Rome in circa 1700 and definitively moved there in 1710. He continued to paint views of Rome and its environs both for the local market and for foreigners who travelled to Italy on the Grand Tour.

This particular pair distinguishes itself for the fact that the views depicted are unusual. The hilltop town, though resembling a number of towns in the Lazio region where densely packed buildings emerge from their landscape settings (such as Borghetto, Valmontone, Castelgandolfo, Caprarola and Ronciglione), has yet to be identified. The view of St. Peter’s is also unconventional: the Basilica is identified by its cupola but Van Lint has shown it rather unusually from the north-east (that is, looking south-east). Only one other veduta taken from this viewpoint is known, and it focuses exclusively on the structure of St. Peter’s instead of the campagna surrounding it (formerly with Colnaghi, London, then in a private collection, Rome; reproduced in A. Busiri Vici, Peter, Hendrik e Giacomo van Lint, Rome 1987, p. 60, cat. no. 40). The open view, in which the fields around St. Peter’s are clearly visible, is more in line with the painting in a private collection, Rome (op. cit., p. 57, cat. no. 35, reproduced in colour), and is even closer to a painting whose whereabouts are unknown (ibid., p. 61, cat. no. 41, reproduced in colour). In the latter, Van Lint also frames the composition with a pine tree, leaning in from the right: this device can often be seen in his paintings, and particularly in pendants, where trees act as repoussoir elements in his compositions, framing the pictures left and right (as here).