Gaspar van Wittel, called Vanvitelli

Marquis Isidore de Masclary, Montpellier (1799-1868) (with its pendant View of the River Tiber at the Porto di Ripa Grande);
Thence by inheritance to Comtesse Marie Gabrielle Mathilde Chebrou de La Roulière (1880-1960), wife of Comte Joseph de Masclary (1870-1957), Tours (with its pendant View of the River Tiber at the Porto di Ripa Grande);
With Chaucer Fine Arts, London, 1989;
Private collection, London;
Acquired from the above by the present collector in July 2005.

Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Paysages d'Italie, 1947, no. 137;
Tours, Musée des Beaux-Arts, L'Art ancien dans les collections privées de Touraine, 12 July - 20 September 1959, no. 21;
London, Chaucer Fine Arts, Paintings and Drawings…, 1989, no. 1.

G. Briganti, Gaspar van Wittel e l'origine della veduta settecentesca, Rome 1966, p. 195, cat. no. 70, reproduced (erroneously described as signed with initials and dated; a mistake corrected by Briganti in later correspondance (1989) and in the 1996 revised edition of his monograph);
L. Salerno, I pittori di vedute in Italia (1580-1830), Rome 1991, p. 83, under no. 27;
G. Briganti, Gaspar van Wittel, eds. L. Laureati & L. Trezzani, Milan 1996, p. 176, cat. no. 121, and p. 200, under cat. no. 190, reproduced in colour on p. 177;
L. Trezzani, in L. Laureati & L. Trezzani, Gaspare Vanvitelli e le origini del vedutismo, Rome, Chiostro del Bramante, 26 October 2002 - 2 February 2003; Venice, Museo Correr, 28 February - 1 June 2003, p. 126, under cat. no. 27.

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden, who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has been fairly recently relined and carefully restored without any wear. The beautiful preservation reflects its stable background, in the same collection over centuries. The flowing brushwork is finely intact with all its delicate detail crisp and unrubbed. There is an even craquelure throughout. Retouching is mainly near the edges: along the top edge particularly towards the top left corner, a few along the base edge and left base corner, slightly older retouching at the right edge in the sky and in the water (rather fainter than more recent touches under ultra violet light). A few small retouchings, perhaps from lost flakes before the lining, can be seen in the upper right sky, with one or two lower down near the horizon between Castel Sant’Angelo and St. Peter’s. In the water the is a small retouching under the boat on the right and one more in the reflection of the arched gate to the garden on the opposite bank. The fine craquelure has been lightly muted in a few places in the lower left sky, with a few more cracks slightly minimised in the Tiber near the foreground boats. The beautiful state of this painting has been naturally enhanced over time. It is in exceptionally good unworn condition. This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Gaspar van Wittel, better known by his Italian sobriquet ‘Vanvitelli’, was the first of the great view painters or vedutisti in late 17th- and early 18th-century Italy. His paintings were for the most part topographically accurate, unlike Panini’s capricci, and were often based on detailed preparatory drawings. These record any number of buildings and locations, many of which have since been demolished, and thus provide us with an important visual testimony to the city’s appearance during Vanvitelli’s own lifetime. Of Dutch origin, Vanvitelli arrived in Rome as a young man when he was barely twenty years old and he made the city his home from 1674, eventually dying there in 1736. He often sought unusual and particularly scenographic viewpoints for his paintings as this allowed him to depict panoramic prospects of the city’s skyline.

Vanvitelli had a particular predilection for views of Rome taken from various points along the river Tiber - lively and diverse, these scenes show figures bathing or loading and unloading their wares from small boats, the recognisable monuments of Rome identifiable in the distance. The calm surface of the river lends itself to Vanvitelli’s atmospheric portrayal and the delicate rendering of reflections in the water enables the artist to introduce a luminous quality to his veduta, whilst also providing a welcome visual break from the cluttered architecture crowding the river’s banks. A number of variants exist of each site along the Tiber and although these vary in date, size and crop of the composition, every one is taken from the same viewpoint and derives from a detailed preparatory drawing. Of this particular view - showing the Porta della Legna on the river Tiber - Vanvitelli is known to have painted at least four variants in oil and two in tempera.¹ All but one were intended to hang as pendants with another view of Rome and four of these (the present work included) were paired up with A view of the river Tiber at the Porto di Ripa Grande.² The present painting’s pendant was also formerly in the De Masclary collection until the mid-20th century and is the only one of four variants showing the Ripa Grande that is dated (1690), thus indicating the date of execution of the present canvas also.³

The view is taken from the riverbank of the Tiber and the horizon line, with its detailed architectural panorama, faithfully reproduces the buildings in Vanvitelli’s meticulous pen-and-ink drawing in the Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele in Rome (see fig. 1).⁴ That sheet is squared and was evidently used to transfer the design to the painted variants listed above, of which only one is dated (1685) thus providing a likely date of execution for the drawing also. Vanvitelli habitually kept his drawings in his studio, using them in later years for his painted compositions: in this case, he painted the composition five years later (for its pendant is dated 1690). None of the other painted variants of the Porto della Legna post-date 1704; the year in which the riverbank at Ripetta was entirely rebuilt with a ramp designed by Alessandro Specchi, itself commemorated in a painting by Vanvitelli.⁵

Of the five painted variants, this canvas is the one in which Vanvitelli adopts the most elongated format: this is particularly suited to a view with such panoramic scope as this one. The full breadth of the river, its gentle curve, the animated skyline with its church spires and cupole, culminating in the formidable structure of the Castel Sant’Angelo and the imposing structure of Saint Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican buildings, are all laid out before us as if representing a visual journey from the everyday (in the figures going about their daily business on the banks of the river in the foreground) to the perpetual (the Vatican being emblematic of the Eternal City). The artist has positioned himself on the banks of the river near the present-day ponte Cavour (built in 1901). The densely-built left bank contrasts with the lush vegetation on the right; the Prati di Castello, the gardens outside the walls and entrance to the vigna Altoviti. At the extreme left is a stack of timber, which gave the port its name. The Porto della Legna was a small dock, set up in 1615 by Giovanni Vasanzio and Domenico Maderno, from which wood - intended for exclusive use as firewood - was distributed to boats along the river.⁶ This particular variant is the only one to include the customs house and palazzo Borghese at the far left, which might suggest that it is a Borghese commission though there is no documentary evidence for this.

The painting’s early provenance is unknown but the painting did find its way to France, perhaps during the 18th century when a number of French diplomats and ambassadors passed through Rome, and it hung alongside its pendant in the Marquis de Masclary’s collection in Montpellier during the 19th century. Emmanuel-Marie-Joseph-Jean-Isidore de Masclary was born on 10 September 1799 in Montpellier and died in the same city sixty-nine years later, on 20 September 1868. In 1822 he married Victorine de Bosquat (1802-1869) with whom he had a son, Anatole (1823-1824), who died as an infant. The Marquis had an impressive collection of paintings - Philippe de Champaigne, Mignard, Bourdon, Brueghel, Rembrandt and Le Nain were among artists represented - works of art and jewelry. His collection was largely dispersed in a posthumous sale in Montpellier, Lazuttes, 5-16 May 1870. This view of Porto della Legna was not included in that sale, nor was its pendant of the Ripa Grande, and the paintings passed by inheritance to the Comtesse Joseph de Masclary in Tours. The pair were probably split up some time between 1960 and 1989 when the present work was exhibited alone in London (its pendant passed by family inheritance until it was sold at Christie's in 1997).

1. See G. Briganti, eds. Laureati & Trezzani, under Literature, pp. 175-77, cat. nos. 119-123, all reproduced.
2. Laureati & Trezzani, op. cit., cat. no. 122, in a private collection (oil on canvas; 58 by 99 cm.), was executed to stand alone; ibid., cat. no. 120,  in Palazzo Pitti, Florence (tempera on paper; dated 1685; 294 by 408 mm.), had A view of Villa Medici, also in tempera, as its pendant.
3. Sold (‘The Property of a Nobleman’), London, Christie’s, 4 July 1997, lot 112; ibid., p. 200, cat. no. 190, reproduced.
4. Pen and ink, squared; 242 by 980 mm.; see Laureati, in ibid., pp. 399-401, cat. no. D322, reproduced on p. 400.
5. The painting, in the possession of Prince Francesco Borghese (1776-1839) in 1832, was with Matthiesen Fine Art Ltd, London, in 2002 and is now in a private collection.
6. It was Pope Paul V’s wish that Porto alla Legna should distribute firewood and the nearby Porto di Ripetta should issue wood used for construction.