A capriccio of Roman ruins with soldiers; and A capriccio of a ruined Roman archway

The most original and innovative painter of the ruins of Rome in the eighteenth century, Panini inspired generations of international followers in his wake, and trained the finest of them, notably the French ruins painter, Hubert Robert. Panini is revered for his sunny vistas of the Eternal City, which he animated with figures dressed in both ancient and modern dress. His paintings often depict Rome’s most recognizable and beloved antiquities and classical monuments, which he frequently relocated and repositioned to fanciful effect. The artist trained in his native city of Piacenza under the stage designer Francesco Galli Bibiena. In 1711, Panini moved to Rome where he studied drawing with Benedetto Luti. A professor at both the Accademia di San Luca and the French Academy in Rome (where near the end of his career he taught Robert and Fragonard), Panini ran an active studio from which he and his assistants supplied hundreds of veduti to the marketplace and fulfilled ambitious commissions from the most prominent collectors visiting Rome on the Grand Tour.

In his highly organized workshop, as David Marshall has discussed, Panini would paint an original composition, which he would sign. It is likely that before the painting was sent to the patron who had commissioned it, a replica would be made and retained in the studio. From this replica, Panini and his assistants might then produce any number of versions, retaining the core elements of the composition to scale, but expanding or contracting it along the edges to suit different formats. For example, a wide horizontal composition might be cropped of peripheral architectural elements along its left and right edges, but expanded in the sky and lower foreground to make the composition more vertical; in almost every case, however, the principal elements would be reproduced on the same scale as in Panini’s original.

The present pair of paintings — the first canvas depicting rustic figures seated near the Temple of Castor and Pollux, the Column of Trajan and the Pyramid of Cestius; its companion piece featuring soldiers before an ancient archway and colonnade – are especially lively and richly colored replicas, produced in Panini’s workshop and under his supervision. Marshall records four versions of the Pyramid of Cestius composition, each of slightly different format. The finest version is in the Denver Art Museum which, although unsigned, is autograph. In addition to the present painting, two other workshop versions are in private collections: one, sold at Christie’s New York in 1992; the other formerly with Bagshawe Fine Arts, London. The companion painting is known in no other version but, as Marshall observes (in correspondence, 25 July 2021), it is clearly Panini’s composition and, therefore, a prime version might yet emerge.

We are grateful to Professor David R. Marshall for proposing the attribution on the basis of photographs and for his assitance with the cataloging.