LODEWIJK TOEPUT, CALLED POZZOSERRATO | A Capriccio view of Rome

Window mounted. Very small thin spots in the two right hand corners. A little light surface dirt, but overall condition very good and fresh.
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This lively capriccio view of Rome, with the Castel Sant' Angelo to the left, the dome of St. Peter's in the centre, and Trajan's column and other significant monuments towards the right, is very comparable in style to Pozzoserrato's View of a City, dated 1601, in the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam,¹ and to the more topographically faithful View of Castel Sant' Angelo, in the Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome.²  In all these sheets, the artist's highly distinctive combination of nervous yet powerful pen-work and great attention to detail is very evident.  Pozzoserrato was one of the first wave of artists from the Netherlands to travel to Italy, but unlike contemporaries such as Paulus Bril, he chose to base himself primarily in the Veneto, rather than in Rome.  He came into contact with Joris Hoefnagel, with whom he was an important contributor to Braun and Hogenberg's epic project to record all possible town and cities for their topographical magnum opus, the Civitates Orbis Terrarum (published in six volumes, between 1572 and 1617).

^1.  T. Gerszi, 'The Draughtsmanship of Lodewijk Toeput,' Master Drawings, vol. XXX, no. 4 (1992), pp. 374, 381 note 29, 383 fig. 19.
^2.  R. Morselli, 'Toeput a Firenze e Roma,' in Toeput a Treviso. Ludovico Pozzoserrato, Lodewijk Toeput, pittore neerlandese nella civiltà veneta del tardo Cinquecento, Asolo 1988, pp. 83-84, fig. 10