AUGUSTE JEAN-BAPTISTE VINCHON | THE FALLS AT TIVOLI WITH THE STABLES OF MAECENAS

With Simon Dickinson Inc, New York;

Where acquired by the present collector circa 1999.

Rome and The Campagna: Oil sketches by Auguste Jean-Baptiste Vinchon and other French artists, exhibition catalogue, New York 1999, p. 7, cat. no. 3, reproduced.

New York, Dickinson Roundell, Rome and The Campagna: Oil sketches by Auguste Jean-Baptiste Vinchon and other French artists, 6 May - 3 June 1999, no. 3.

A native of Paris, Vinchon was a pupil of Gioacchino Giuseppe Serangeli (1768-1852) and Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825). He went to Rome where he won second prize in the Prix de Rome in 1813, and the Grand Prix in the following year. While in Rome, aside from making copies of the Antique and Old Masters, Vinchon made copious oil sketches of the city and surrounding campagna. Although it was common to make landscape sketches in oil since the 17th century, it was not until the late 18th century that it became an established practice. Unlike with drawings, these oil sketches presented an additional challenge: color. They became a useful tool for all artists to train in the observation of nature, even if, like Vinchon, they did not intend to specialize in landscape painting. Most of the oil sketches Vinchon painted remain in the permanent collection of Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tours.

This painting is reminiscent of the views of Tivoli Gaspard Dughet made in the 17th Century. It depicts the stables of Gaius Maecenas, an Augustan-era patron of the arts, commissioned for his villa. After Maecenas' death, his land became imperial property soon to be burnt under Nero. Although the luxury of his gardens may have aroused displeasure from those of a more stoic nature like Seneca, its grandeur and mystique served as a muse for painters.