Lot 354
  • 354

MONOGRAMMIST MVO | A view of the Palatine Hill, Rome

Estimate
4,000 - 6,000 GBP
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Description

  • A view of the Palatine Hill, Rome
  • Pen and brown ink and wash and red chalk, on paper washed brown;inscribed in brown ink, upper centre: Pal. Maiori. and signed with initials in black chalk, verso: MVO and numbered: 15.
  • 105 by 198 mm

Provenance

Sir Thomas Lawrence (L.2445, twice);
E.J. Otto, Celle (L.873b);
Possibly H.C. Valkema Blouw,
his sale, Amsterdam, Frederik Muller, 2-4 March 1954, lot 342 (with two others);
with Galerie Julius Böhler, Munich, by 1975,
where acquired by F.C. Butôt (1906-92), Sankt Gilgen, Austria,
his posthumous sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby’s 16 November 1993, lot 103 (as M** van Overbeek)

Literature

L.J. Bol, G.S. Keyes and F.C. Butôt, Netherlandish Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of F.C. Butôt by little-known and rare masters of the seventeenth century, 1981, cat. 77

Catalogue Note

A substantial group of topographical drawings depicting English, French, Italian and Dutch views, all in the same distinctive media and many bearing identifying inscriptions of the type seen here, have traditionally been linked with the name Michiel (or Michel) van Overbeek, on the basis of the initials, MVO, which a number of the drawings bear on the reverse. Four superb examples of London views, drawn by this idiosyncratic artist circa 1663, were recently presented on the London art market, including A view of Westminster from St. James's Park, St. James's Palace from the Park and two views in Hyde Park.1

Other highly comparable drawings of Roman views, among which the present sheet seamlessly fits, are in the collections of the British Museum, London,2 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York3 and The Morgan Library, New York.4

1. See The Spirit & Force: Drawing in Britain 1600–1750, exhib. cat., London, Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker Ltd., pp. 102-105, nos. 30A, 30B, 30C and 30D, all reproduced
2. London, The British Museum, inv. no. 1945,1004.5
3. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 2011.225
4. New York, The Morgan Library, inv. no. 2009.232