Andrea Locatelli Rome 1695 - 1741

George, 9th Baron Kinnaird (1807-1878), 33 Grosvenor Street, London, between 1850 and 1864, and then at Rossie Priory, Perthshire (Scotland), inv. nos. 105 and 106 respectively;
Thence by descent until 1990;
With Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox Ltd., London, 1990, there purchased by the present collector.

Andrea Locatelli was one of the greatest landscape painters of the 18th century and he specialised in painting views of the Roman campagna. Having first worked with his father Giovanni Francesco he completed his training with the marine painter Bernardino Fergioni. Locatelli’s earliest works consist mainly of architectural capricci of the ancient ruins of Rome, anticipating Gian Paolo Panini and painted in a style reminiscent of Salvator Rosa and Giovanni Ghisolfi, but he went on to concentrate and develop the genre for which he is best known today; painting idealised views of the countryside around Rome, for both local and foreign patrons alike. Despite being in constant demand, Locatelli’s slow pace of working, extended family and poor health, all contributed to the considerable financial difficulties he faced during his lifetime. He died in 1741 “after a dissolute life, in poverty and unlamented, his widow renouncing all claim to an estate that was crippled with debts”.¹

This fine pair of paintings are relatively early works in the artist’s career. The Rocky landscape with brigands was described by Busiri Vici as being “one of the Locatelli landscapes which most strongly denote the influence of Rosa and of his close followers” and indeed the figures wearing armor and the rocky landscape setting are equally reminiscent of Salvator Rosa, whom Locatelli both admired and imitated. Its pendant, showing a River landscape with figures, represents the type of arcadian landscapes for which Locatelli became famous, drawing on the paintings of Gaspard Dughet for inspiration as well as those of his contemporary Jan Frans van Bloemen. Busiri Vici described it as “one of Locatelli’s most beautiful landscapes of the panoramic type. The brushwork, scenic composition, figures and animals are all of notable quality.” Both paintings are extremely similar in style to Locatelli’s two extraordinary views of the Roman campagna - one in a private collection and the other in the Istituto Italiano di Credito Fondario in Rome - whose identical dimensions might suggest that all four paintings may once have been conceived as a set.²

When the paintings were exhibited in London in 1990 they were listed as coming from the collection of the Rt. Hon. Lord Kinnaird at Rossie Priory, near Dundee in Perthshire (Scotland). The paintings were not among those singled out by Gustav Waagen after his trip to the house in the mid-1850s, but his list of pictures at Rossie Priory is by no means exhaustive.³ The pictures may not have been considered worthy of mention by Waagen but it is far more likely that they were not at Rossie Priory during his visit in the 1850s, for they appear to have hung in Lord Kinnaird’s London apartment at 33 Grosvenor Street, according to old labels on the reverse of both paintings. George, 9th Baron Kinnaird (1807-1878), inhabited this residence between 1850 and 1864 and it is therefore most likely that the paintings hung there during this period, and only returned to Rossie Priory after that date. Waagen considered the Kinnairds to be amongst “the most distinguished collectors in England since 1792, who, by transplanting the most admirable works of art into their country, have conferred upon it a lasting benefit”.⁴ Most of the collection at Rossie Priory had been amassed by the 9th Baron’s grandfather, George, 7th Baron Kinnaird (1754-1805), and by his son Charles, 8th Baron Kinnaird (1780-1826). A close friend of Lord Byron’s, the 8th Baron frequently travelled to Italy and had a more Italianate taste in pictures than his father, thus making him the likely purchaser of this pair of paintings by Locatelli.⁵

1  In the words of Olivier Michel, cited by E. Peters Bowron in Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia, Museum of Art, March 16 – May 28, 2000; Houston, The Museum of Fine Arts, June 25 – September 17, 2000, p. 390.
2  Both measure 72 by 134 cm.. The first, A landscape in Latium with a view of Mount Soracte in a windstorm, was in a private collection, St. Moritz; the second, A coastal landscape in Latium with a rainbow, is in the Istituto Italiano di Credito Fondario, Rome: see A. Busiri Vici, under Literature, cat. nos. 126 and 127 respectively, both reproduced in color pp. 210-211, fig. 268 and p. 84, fig. 102.
3  Waagen visited various collections throughout Great Britain in 1854 and 1856. A description of a selection of objects he saw at Rossie Priory is discussed in G. Waagen, Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain, London 1857, pp. 445-448 (the Locatellis are not among them).
4  G. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, London 1854, p. 26.
5  Among the 8th Baron’s acquisitions was Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne today in the National Gallery, London (which was sold by Kinnaird in London, Phillips, March 3-4, 1813). For a fuller discussion of Kinnaird’s collection see P. Humfrey, “Appendix II: Principal Scottish Collectors & Advisers”, in The Age of Titian. Venetian Renaissance Art from Scottish Collections, exhibition catalogue, Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy Building, August 5 - December 5, 2004, p. 418.