Giuseppe Bernardino Bison

Private collection, Rome;
By whom sold, Milan, Sotheby's, 12 November 2003, lot 173, where acquired.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work on panel is in very good condition. The panel is very slightly curved from top to bottom. The reverse shows no reinforcements. The paint layer is stable and there are no cracks in the wood. Under ultraviolet light, no retouches are visible at all. The painting may be slightly dirty, but the condition is clearly wonderful.
"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."

This splendid, signed panel was painted in 1832, the year after Bison moved to Milan, so the artist would have made use of drawings from his time in Rome. The vast majority of Bison's oeuvre consists of views of Venice painted in gouache so views of other cities and in different media are extremely rare.

In the Imperial era, the location of the present-day Piazza Navona was the site of a stadium built by the Emperor Domitian. Bison's painting shows the piazza after its Baroque transformation under the reign of Pope Innocent X: Francesco Borromini's church of Sant'Agnese in Agone can be seen center left, while Gian Lorenzo Bernini's magnificent Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, with above it the Obelisk of Domitian, stands at the center of the piazza.