Lot 2089 Dα

This Capriccio with Roman architecture and soldiers is one of the earliest known works by Giovanni Paolo Panini, one of the most important capriccio and veduta painters in 18th century Italy. In his catalogue raisonné on the artist, Ferdinando Arisi lists the painting as one of the first works under number 12 and links it "senza alcun dubbio" with an equally early pair of paintings from the De Benedetti collection in Piacenza (Arisi, op. cit., nos. 10 and 11). In the catalogue of the important Capriccio exhibition, in which our painting was shown in 1996 and 1997 respectively in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne, the Kunsthaus in Zurich and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, it is assumed to have been painted around 1708, i.e. before Panini moved to Rome, probably in 1711, and David R. Marshall also analyses the painting in his detailed treatise on Panini's early work.


While Marshall sees not only the influence of Ghisolfi but also a proximity to the work of Alberto Carlieri, Michael Kiene in the Capriccio catalogue emphasises above all the model of Ghisolfi, for example in the "dark tones and contrasting clouds used in the colour palette" (op. cit.) and the two soldiers in the centre of the picture. Panini would adopt the motif of the two soldiers very similarly in his painting Alexander at the Tomb of Achilles in 1719 (Arisi, op. cit., no. 114), with which he secured his admission to the Accademia di San Luca.


In addition to vedute, capricci and landscapes with imaginary ruins, Panini was particularly successful with his paintings of festivities, which he produced, among other occasions, for the birth of the Dauphin in 1729 and 16 years later for his wedding.