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Dimensions: 39 1/8 by 53 1/8 in.; 99.4 by 135cm
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Provenance: Pietro Candiani, Busto Arsizio, by 1961.
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Literature: E. Arslan, "Tre inediti di G.P. Pannini," in Commentari, Year XI, nos. 3-4, July - December 1960, pp. 265-66, reproduced plate LXXXIV, fig. 1;
F. Arisi, Gian Paolo Panini, Piacenza 1961, pp. 142-3, cat. no. 84, reproduced fig. 136;
F. Arisi, Gian Paolo Panini e i fasti della Roma del '700, Rome 1986, p. 334, cat. no. 207, reproduced.
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Notes: This extraordinary view is a fine and characteristic example of the type of picture for which Panini became famous. He specialised in painting vedute, many of which were imaginary (capricci), and Panini differed from contemporary painters such as Bellotto and Vanvitelli, whose accurately described views contrast with his picturesque approach to topography. An array of ruins from the Roman Forum (including the Temple of Minerva Medica in the left background) are superimposed with other identifiable structures, such as Trajan's column and an Egyptian obelisk, and certain elements, such as the marble relief lower left and the statues of Marcus Aurelius and the Farnese Hercules, reappear in numerous compositions by the artist. The architectural ruins of ancient Rome are juxtaposed in an unrealistic and highly theatrical way, serving as a backdrop for the figures playing out a scene in the foreground, very much like actors on a set. More figures approach from the wings, leaning and walking through the colonnaded portico of the Pantheon on the right. It is no coincidence that Panini's capricci look like sets: as a young man he worked alongside Ferdinando Galli Bibiena as a stage designer in his native Piacenza.
This painting dates from the prime of Panini's career, just two years before he became a member of the Académie de France à Rome (1732) and eleven years after he became a member of the Accademia di San Luca in the same city (1719). The existence of a number of preparatory drawings, particularly in the form of figure studies, indicate that Panini worked hard at figuring out such a complex composition. The man and woman conversing lower left occur on a sheet in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (inv. 17541) whilst the woman standing just to the right of them appears as a detail on a larger sheet in the Biblioteca Reale in Turin (inv. 668). The man lower center, seen from behind and leaning on the reclining column, reappears on a sheet in Berlin (inv. 15463), though Arisi dates that drawing to circa 1740; that is, ten years after the present picture was painted (see Arisi, under Literature, under cat. no. 207).
