Antonio Joli "View of the Campo Vaccino" oil on canvas (117x154 cm.)...
Antonio Joli ( Modena 1700 - Napoli 1777 )
"View of the Campo Vaccino" oil on canvas (117x154 cm.) in a gilt frame Provenance Siegfried Sassoon of Heytesbury House, Wiltshire Then by inheritance, Heytesbury Private Collection, United States Hall & Knight (USA) LTD Sotheby's, London, December 16, 1999, Lot 83 Literature Ralph Toledano, Antonio Joli, Artemisia, 2006, scheda e tav. R.I.3, p. 129 Mario Manzelli, Antonio Joli, opera pittorica, 1999, scheda R. 25, p. 94, Tav. XXX Our superb canvas depicts one of the most characteristic views of what was formerly known as the Campo Vaccino, namely part of the Roman Forum. From right to left, the following landmarks can be identified: the columns of the Temple of Saturn; the three columns of the Temple of Castor and Pollux; the former church of Santa Maria Liberatrice (rebuilt in the early seventeenth century and subsequently demolished in the late nineteenth century); the Palatine Hill with the Farnese Gardens, created by Pope Paul III; the Arch of Titus; the Colosseum; the Basilica of Maxentius; the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina; and, at the far left, part of the Arch of Septimius Severus. The view of the Campo Vaccino was one of the Modenese painter Joli's signature subjects, testament to its great success among Italian and foreign collectors. A pupil of Gian Paolo Panini, from whom he inherited a mastery of the veduta genre, Joli developed a highly distinctive and immediately recognisable style, combining the rigorous sensibility of the vedutisti with the theatrical grandeur of the Bibiena family. Here, the veduta merges with genre painting, as the elegant carriage that dominates the centre of the composition passes through a scene populated by figures from more humble social spheres. The fascination with ruins, still largely unexcavated in the Campo Vaccino, fuelled the imagination and poetic sensibilities of learned intellectuals and, above all, foreign aristocrats, at a unique moment in Western history when Roman (and Greek) ruins came to be perceived as subjects in their own right, endowed with considerable educational potential. Rome thus became a unique centre for the creation of unusual combinations of themes and motifs, partly imaginary and partly corresponding to the city's actual topography, as in the present work. Whether invented or historically accurate, the ruin nevertheless remained the true protagonist of this new pictorial genre, in which the human presence became insignificant or merely decorative, serving to indicate scale and to convey a sense of life amid the solitude of a once-glorious world now lost.
Estimate € 90,000 - 100,000
Sold (fees included) € 108,800
Antonio Joli ( Modena 1700 - Napoli 1777 )
"View of the Campo Vaccino" oil on canvas (117x154 cm.) in a gilt frame Provenance Siegfried Sassoon of Heytesbury House, Wiltshire Then by inheritance, Heytesbury Private Collection, United States Hall & Knight (USA) LTD Sotheby's, London, December 16, 1999, Lot 83 Literature Ralph Toledano, Antonio Joli, Artemisia, 2006, scheda e tav. R.I.3, p. 129 Mario Manzelli, Antonio Joli, opera pittorica, 1999, scheda R. 25, p. 94, Tav. XXX Our superb canvas depicts one of the most characteristic views of what was formerly known as the Campo Vaccino, namely part of the Roman Forum. From right to left, the following landmarks can be identified: the columns of the Temple of Saturn; the three columns of the Temple of Castor and Pollux; the former church of Santa Maria Liberatrice (rebuilt in the early seventeenth century and subsequently demolished in the late nineteenth century); the Palatine Hill with the Farnese Gardens, created by Pope Paul III; the Arch of Titus; the Colosseum; the Basilica of Maxentius; the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina; and, at the far left, part of the Arch of Septimius Severus. The view of the Campo Vaccino was one of the Modenese painter Joli's signature subjects, testament to its great success among Italian and foreign collectors. A pupil of Gian Paolo Panini, from whom he inherited a mastery of the veduta genre, Joli developed a highly distinctive and immediately recognisable style, combining the rigorous sensibility of the vedutisti with the theatrical grandeur of the Bibiena family. Here, the veduta merges with genre painting, as the elegant carriage that dominates the centre of the composition passes through a scene populated by figures from more humble social spheres. The fascination with ruins, still largely unexcavated in the Campo Vaccino, fuelled the imagination and poetic sensibilities of learned intellectuals and, above all, foreign aristocrats, at a unique moment in Western history when Roman (and Greek) ruins came to be perceived as subjects in their own right, endowed with considerable educational potential. Rome thus became a unique centre for the creation of unusual combinations of themes and motifs, partly imaginary and partly corresponding to the city's actual topography, as in the present work. Whether invented or historically accurate, the ruin nevertheless remained the true protagonist of this new pictorial genre, in which the human presence became insignificant or merely decorative, serving to indicate scale and to convey a sense of life amid the solitude of a once-glorious world now lost.
Estimate € 90,000 - 100,000
Sold (fees included) € 108,800
