Alberto Pullicino

Probably commissioned or acquired by Robert Clements, 1st Earl of Leitrim (1732-1804);
Thence by family descent.

Mary, 2nd Countess of Leitrim, ms. inventory of Pictures etc. at Killadoon, 27 June 1836: 'Inside Hall. Seven Views of Malta in Gilt Frames'.

The following condition report is provided by Hamish Dewar who is an external expert and not an employee of Sotheby's. Structural Condition The seven canvases all have old linings and there are varying degrees of craquelure on each of the paintings. The linings have probably reached the stage where the original canvases need to be treated and relined to ensure structural stability and a more harmonious overall appearance. Paint Surface The paint surfaces all have very discoloured varnish layers and should be transformed by cleaning. I would be confident of a considerable colour change once these yellowed varnish layers have been removed. There are small scattered abrasions and minor losses on some of the paintings and scattered retouchings which have discoloured and are visible in natural light. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows scattered retouchings which appear to have been applied many years ago and are beneath the old varnish layers. Many of these retouchings appear excessive and should they be removed during the cleaning process, could be reduced. Summary The paintings would therefore appear to be in reasonably good condition although it should be noted that a number of retouchings have been applied in the past and the canvases do require structural intervention. The paintings should respond very well to cleaning, restoration and revarnishing.
"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."

This is the largest and most complete set of views of the island and harbours of Malta to have survived from the eighteenth century and the only such set to have remained together since its acquisition or commission. Two further incomplete sets are known; a set of four views formerly with Rafael Valls in London in 1986, and another of five views sold in these Rooms, 10 December 1986, lot 40, and later with Chaucer Fine Arts in London. An additional small group of four views is recorded as formerly from the Sant Fournier collection in Malta and now in a private collection. To these may be added several examples of individual views which may have formed part of the known and incomplete sets or which may have themselves formed part of other unrecorded groups. Another set of six views, for example, seemingly of secondary or replica quality was sold Monaco, Sotheby's, 7 December 1990, lot 25. The fullest analysis and juxtaposition of these groups was published by David Boswell in the same year.¹  In contrast to the relatively large numbers of vedute of Naples, Rome or Venice, views of Malta in the eighteenth century were, and remain, of the greatest rarity. The island was then under the sovereignty of the Order of the Knights of St. John, and would remain so until the arrival of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798 and his subsequent displacement by the British. The journey there was a long and difficult one and few Grand Tourists made the trip. Among those who did were John, 4th Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792) and his friend William Ponsonby, later 2nd Earl of Bessborough, accompanied by the Swiss painter Jean-Etienne Liotard, who made the rip in 1738, and William Young (1749-1815) whose own journey took place in 1772.

As Boswell observes the key painting in these groups is that in the ex-Valls group which depicts Valletta from the entry to its two main harbours - unique among all the known sets - which is inscribed  and dated on the reverse: Veue (sic) de lentree du grand port/de malte peinte d'apres nature/en aout 1749 par alberto pulicino/pour le chevalier turgot. This allows us to identify the painter as Albert Pullicino, a relatively obscure native of Valletta, whose principal patrons were the Order of the Knights of Saint John in Malta, for whom he worked in the 1750s in a mainly decorative vein for the convent church of St. John in Valletta . His son Giorgio (1779-1851) was also a view painter, but gained a greater reputation as an architect. The 'Chevalier Turgot' was the Frenchman, Etienne François Turgot de Brucourt (1721-1789), the son of a royal counsellor, who was in Malta between 1746 and 1760 for his enrolment into the Order of the Knights of Saint John.

In views such as this, Pullicino broke completely with the prevailing tradition of elaborate and decorative birds-eye panoramic views of the island established in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and continued by the well-known gouache views painted by Joseph Goupy (fl.1711-63). As the inscription on Turgot's picture testifies, Pulliccino's works were painted direct from nature, taken at eye level and from specific viewpoints, most of which can still be identified today. The particular titles of each view can be gleaned from a prospectus of engravings made in 1753 by the Frenchman A.F.G. de Palmeus, whose descriptions clearly match those of the Pullicino views.²  The fact that De Palmeus also dedicated three further maps and plans of Malta in 1751-52 to Louis François Bourbon, Prince de Conti, the Grand Prior of the Order of St. John in France, suggests that one of the existing sets of views by Pullicino may have been painted for the same patron.

Pullicino's views are rendered with a remarkable sense of colour, with a particular delight in rendering the different effects of the wind upon the sea, as well as a remarkable attention to architectural and topographical detail. At least one of these views, however, contains a depiction of a contemporary historical event. This is the view of the View of Fort Manoel and Marsamxett harbour as far as Dragut point taken from the auberg of Germany. In 1748 Christian slaves had mutinied on board the galley La lupa di Rodi, the galley of the Pasha of Rhodes. Under the leadership of Qara Mehmet, a Moorish slave, the Pasha himself was taken prisoner and the galley brought to Malta, where it arrived on the 28 February. Mehmet was carried in triumph through Valletta, the slaves freed and the Pasha and his retinue placed under the protection of the French. Pullicino shows the arrival of the galley, escorted by that of the Captain-General of the Order. The gallery flies the Order's flags at the masthead and trails the Turkish standards in the sea fore and aft, while on the deck of the galley itself the turbanned figure of the Moor himself can clearly be seen (fig.1).

Although the exact circumstances of its commission are not known, this set was most probably acquired by Robert Clements, Ist Earl of Leitrim (1732-1804) during his travels in Italy in 1753-54 (fig. 2). It is not known whether he visited Malta, for the journal of his trip is frustratingly incomplete, but he is known to have visited Naples, arriving there on the 26 April 1754, when he visited Mount Vesuvius and where he acquired a number of views of the city and its environs.  A notable connoisseur he sat for his portrait to Pompeo Batoni in Rome at the same date.³  The purchases he made on his Grand Tour were used to decorate his newly built house at Killadoon, County Kildare, which was begun around 1767 and recorded by the English writer Arthur Young as finished by the time of his visit in 1776-77.⁴  The first inventory of the pictures at Killadoon was made after his death in 1806, but it gives no attributions or dimensions, and the Pullicinos are first recorded as hanging on the great staircase there in the later inventory of 1836, above three 'stone sarcophagi with rich arabesque ornament' also from Malta. . His son Nathaniel, the 2nd Earl of Leitrim also travelled to Italy in 1810, but he did not follow his father's predilections for collecting art. The probability that the present set was indeed a commission for a British patron is shown by Pullicino's inclusion of two British ships in his view of the left side of the Grand Harbour taken from Valletta itself, a feature that does not recur in any other recorded version of this view.




1. D. Boswell, "Malta's Canaletto. Alberto Pullicino: a painter 'after nature' and his circle", in Apollo, December 1990, pp. 392-99.
2. A.F.G. De Palmeus, Vues de la ville capitale de Malte: Proposées par souscription, Paris 1753.
3. A.M. Clark, Pompeo Batoni, Oxford 1985, p. 257, cat. no. 174, reproduced plate 162.
4. A. Young, A Tour in Ireland, 1780.