Antonio Joli Modena circa 1700 - 1777 Naples

With G. Oliver & Sons, Guildford, Surrey, by whom sold in 1951 to
French & Co., Inc., New York, from whom acquired in 1957 by the present owners.

G. Z. Thomas, "A picture worth a thousand words," Antiques Magazine, November 1965;
"Collector's Notes," Antiques Magazine, February 1967.

This Capriccio of the River Menam is quite unusual in the artist's oeuvre, whose work consists mostly of views of  Naples, Venice, Madrid, Rome and London, with an occasional architectural capriccio.  The well-traveled Joli had visited and worked in all of these places and had first hand knowledge of the sites that he portrayed.  However, this composition, although topographical in nature, has an element of fantasy and the exotic which is unique among his vedute.   

Having no first-hand knowledge of Asia himself, Joli based his view on the printed sources that were available to him.  The Austrian architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach had published in 1721 his multi-volumed Entwurff einer historischen Architektur, a world history of architecture.  One engraving (vol. III, plate X; see Fig. 1) depicts the Royal Palace of Siam along the River Menam.  Fischer von Erlach (himself amalgamating his engraving from images in the Voyage de Siam, (1688), chose to depict an historical event, the arrival of a French Embassy to Siam in October of 1685.  An attempt was made to give control of Siam to the French, apparently with the complicity of the Thai King Narai's advisor, the Greek adventurer Constantine Phaulkon.  Phaulkon was later killed and the French were driven from the country. 

As if to reinforce the exoticism of the composition even further, Joli has interpolated another more famous Asian architectural form and one that would have been the most familiar to 18^th Century Europeans.  At the left of the composition is a depiction of the famous White Porcelain Pagoda, from the Baoen si Temple, outside Nanjing, China.  This tower was the first such known in Europe when it was published in Jan Nieuhof's An Embassy from the East India Company (Amsterdam 1665, see Fig. 2), and later again by Fischer von Erlach (vol. III, plate XII).    

While it is difficult to date this picture stylistically, the elablorate gilt chinoiserie mirror in which the painting acts as a trumeau may furnish a clue.  The motifs on the mirror as well as its construction suggest that it is German, and thus the painting may have been commissioned by a German patron during Joli's sojourn there, just before 1744.   Another version of the composition, with differences in staffage and other details, is in an American private collection (see R. Middione, Antonio Joli, Sondino ca. 1995, cat. no. 5; and M. Manzelli, Antonio Joli, Venice ca. 1999, p. 128, cat. no C.13).

We are grateful to Ralph Toledano who has noted that this painting or the other version may be identifiable with a picture formerly at Stowe (see J. Seeley, Stowe, A Description of the House and Gardens of the most Noble and Puissant Prince George Grenville Nugent Temple, Marquis of Buckingham, by 1797, p.53, where the author describes in the "Drawing Room", a "View of Pekin, by Jolli"). Based on photographs, Professor Toledano will include the present painting in his forthcoming monograph on Joli.