Circle of Jan Frans van Bloemen, called Orizzonte

With Chaucer Fine Arts, London, by 1987 (as Jan Frans van Bloemen, called Orizzonte);

Private collection, UK;

From whom acquired by the present owner.

This beautifully rendered Italianate landscape is likely to have been executed in Rome by an artist in the circle of Jan Frans van Bloemen in the mid-eighteenth century. Among the artists in his workshop, Andrea Busiri Vici lists Francesco Ignazio Bavarese, called Borgognone (circa 1675–after 1724), Marcantonio Sardi (active 1711–1733) and Gabriello Ricciardelli (1713–circa 1777).¹ An attribution to one of these painters must remain speculative, owing to the small number of known works securely attributed to them.

Like in many of Van Bloemen's compositions, the figures in this work were executed by a different hand, possibly by an artist close to the Roman painter Placido Costanzi (1702–1759). A comparable rendition of this subject by Van Bloemen and Costanzi is in a private collection, Rome.²

¹ A. Busiri Vici, Jan Frans Van Bloemen, Orizzonte, e l'origine del paesaggio Romano settecentesco, Rome 1974, pp. 175–85.

² Oil on canvas; 82 x 99 cm.; Busiri Vici 1974, p. 145, no. 343, reproduced in colour fig. 171 (incorrectly titled ‘Rebecca at the Well’); https://catalogo.fondazionezeri.unibo.it/entry/work/64806/Bloemen%20Jan%20Frans%20van%20%28Orizzonte%29%20Costanzi%20Placido%2C%20Paesaggio%20con%20Cristo%20e%20la%20Samaritana%20al%20pozzo