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| Title | Landscape with the Column of Trajan | |
| Collection | English Heritage (Marble Hill House) | |
| Artist | Panini, Giovanni Paolo (Italian painter, ca. 1692-1765) | |
| Date | 1738 | |
| Description | One of a set of four over-doors and an over-mantel produced in 1738 for the decoration of the Great Room at Marble Hill House, then the residence of the Countess of Suffolk, Panini's painting Landscape with the Column of Trajan was located on the wall opposite the fireplace in a specially designed frame incorporating the painting within the rooms decorative scheme. Like its 'pendant' the Landscape with the Pantheon this painting provided Panini with an opportunity to invent a new compositional motif, the Column of Trajan stands tall on the right while beyond it the columned temple recalls the Maison Carrée at Nimes, a motif frequently used by Panini in his inclusive representation of ideal ancient Roman architecture. The building with three large arches beyond, recalls (in reduced form) the Basilica of Constantine and Maxentius in the Forum, while the tall fragmentary structure in the distance is the Settizonium, an ancient theatre building of complex design, demolished during the sixteenth century but recorded in prints and drawings of the period. To the left is the seated figure of Rome personified from the Capitol and completing this imaginary composition, at the centre are the figures of the Dioscuri, Castor and Polux, the so-called Horse Tamers from Rome's Piazza del Quirinale then considered to be the work of the ancient Greek sculptors Phedias and Praxitelese. | |
| Current Accession Number | 88029490 | |
| Former Accession Number | 316 | |
| Subject | landscape; buildings and gardens (ruins) | |
| Measurements | 108 x 97.5 cm (estimate) | |
| Material | oil on canvas | |
| Acquisition Details | Purchased by English Heritage for Marble Hill House 1988. | |
| Provenance | Commissioned from the artist on behalf of Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk and probably at Marble Hill shortly after 1738; first recorded there in 1767 after the Countess' death; removed from Marble Hill by Ernest Cunard prior to its public purchase in 1902; London art trade, 1926; bought George Hay Whigham, then by descent to Margaret, Duchess of Argyll; Sotheby's, 7 July 1976, lot 58; purchased Falanga, Milan; private collection, South America by 1983; private collection, South of France by 1988. | |
| Publications | Arisi, F., Gian Paolo Panini e i fasti della Roma del ‘700, Rome, 1986, pp. 124-26, 358-60, cat. no. 256. | |
| Notes | Giovanni Paolo Panini (Piacenza 1691-1765 Rome) was the most celebrated view painter in eighteenth-century Rome. His early training in Piacenza may have been undertaken with the perspective specialist Ferdinando Galli Bibbiena, but following his move to Rome in 1711, the formative influences on his landscape style derive from the works of Jan Frans van Blomen and Andrea Locatelli as well as the topographical views of Gaspare Vanvittelli. Until 1717-18 he attended the drawing academy of Benedetto Luiti whose luminous colourism played a definitive role in lightening his palette. Panini's early career was marked by a series of commissions for landscape frescoes notably in the Quirinal Palace for Pope Innocent XIII in 1722. Although an engaging figure painter, Panini only began to concentrate exclusively on the easel paintings for which he is remembered today, later in his career, when he worked to meet the demand of Grand Tour visitors to the eternal city. His landscapes divide into two main types, vedute reali (accurate views rendered from life) and vedute ideate (imaginary views with combinations of monuments) these encompass practically all the notable architecture of ancient and modern Rome. Panini's additional professional interests included activity as an architect, designer of carvings and other ecclesiastical furnishings, the design of festival apparatus and other ephemeral architecture including stage sets, the production of firework displays and provision of 'art expert' services. Panini's successful career was marked by his election to numerous elite academies in Rome: in 1718 to the Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon; in 1719 to the Accademia di San Luca which he served as Principe in 1754-55 and in 1743 to the Accademia degli Arcadi. In 1724 following the death of his first wife, Panini married Caterina Gosset, the daughter of Nicholas Vleughels the director of the French Academy, where Panini taught perspective, consequently exerting significant influence on the first generation of French Neoclassical landscape painters. In 1732 he was accorded a rare privilege among Roman painters being received as member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris. | |
| Rights Owner | Copyright English Heritage | |
| Author | Francesco Nevola | |