Antonio Joli

(Modena 1700–1777 Naples)
An Italianate capriccio river landscape,
oil on canvas, 112.5 x 143 cm, framed

Provenance:
Imperial House of Habsburg-Lorraine

We are grateful to Ralph Toledano for confirming the attribution on the basis of a high resolution digital photograph.

Antonio Joli first trained in his native town of Modena and then travelled to Rome, studying in the studios of Giovanni Paolo Panini and the Galli-Bibiena family of artists. A promising painter of vedute, he then became a painter of stage sets in Modena, Perugia, and Venice. He lived in Venice until 1735, where he came into contact with Canaletto and again worked as a scene painter. Travelling widely across Europe, his journey took him from Germany to London, where he lived from 1744 to 1748. Holding a senior position at the King‘s Theatre in the Haymarket, he decorated the Richmond mansion of John James Heidegger, the theatre’s director, with topographical views. Between 1750 and 1754 he worked in Madrid and subsequently returned to Venice, becoming a founding member of the local Accademia in 1755. Soon afterwards he settled in Naples, where he was appointed court painter to Charles VII (from 1759 Charles III of Spain) and responsible for the entertainment at the court. Joli remained in Naples for the rest of his life and became a successful vedutist and painter of capriccios working mainly for British aristocrats on their Grand Tour.

In the present painting, the artist has not depicted a exisitng topography, but instead combined imaginary buildings within a fantastic capriccio so as to achieve a particularly picturesque effect. Both the antique and Christian buildings are reminiscent of Rome and inventions by Giovanni Paolo Panini. The staffage figures may have been executed by Gaspare Diziani, who was active in Rome between 1720 and 1727 and he also painted the figures in a pair of Joli’s capriccios offered at Sotheby’s, London, 7 July 2005 as lot 44 (see R. Toledano, Antonio Joli, Turin 2006, pp. 106/107, nos. C.XIV.2 and C.XV2).