Capriccio of Classical Ruins

1739 · Private collection

landscape

Pannini's mature manner, culminating in his easel works of the 1730s and 1740s, developed through an assimilation of a variety of influences, most notably his exposure to the work of Gaspare Vanvitelli, another master of Roman vedute, and Salvator Rosa. The present painting is a excellent example of how Pannini incorporated all these different influences and interpreted them in his own unique and impressive fashion. This capriccio of classical ruins includes the Temple of Antonius and Faustina, the Colosseum, the Basilica of Maxentius and the Temple of Venus and Rome.

About the Artist

Giovanni Paolo Pannini

1691 – 1765

Giovanni Paolo Pannini (or Panini), Italian painter. He was the first painter to specialize in ruins, treating them as Roman 'vedute' of a special kind. He was working in Rome by c. 1717, but the earliest surviving dated picture is of 1727 (London, Wellington Museum); in 1729 he was concerned in a Fête given by Cardinal de Polignac in honour of the birth of the Dauphin and this began a long connection with France and the French Academy in Rome. Paintings of the Fête are in the Louvre (1729) and Dublin (1731). His views of modern Rome, as well as his capricci based on the better-known ruins, had an enormous vogue among Grand Tourists and examples are to be found in most older galleries. Piranesi, though far more of an archaeologist, was influenced by him, and so was Canaletto.

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