BARBERINI PALACE - NATIONAL ART GALLERY (twenty-eighth part)

Other Works in the Museum Storage

“St. Sebastian between Onorato II and Pietro Bernardino Caetani d'Aragona” about 1481 by Antonio Aquili aka Antoniozzo Romano (about 1435-40/1508)

“This painting on board is revealing of the versatility of Antoniazzo in different areas of his artistic production (...): a versatility that is expressed in the production of frescoes as well as in the paintings for private devotion or in the sceneries for religious events, always accommodating the needs of his clients, using an entrepreneurship approach which is probably the main reason for the difficulty of rebuilding the catalog of the artist. (...) The painting in Palazzo Barberini synthesizes, for example, his familiarity with the tradition of icons and his knowledge of classical art, evident in the vivid representation of St. Sebastian, and at the same time suggests the skills of the painter for portraits and landscape compositions. (...) The setting is similar to the plain of Fondi and the mountain in the background was recently recognized as being Monte Sant'Angelo near Terracina” (Daniele Ferrara)

“Juno and Argus” by the so-called Maestro della Betulla (Master of the Birch) (active 1630/40)

“Allegory of Peace” maybe by Simon Vouet (1590/1649)

“Sacrifice of Isaac” about 1625 by Orazio Riminaldi (1593/1630)

“Rest on the Flight into Egypt” about 1640 by Angelo Caroselli (1585/1652)

“The Flight into Egypt” about 1625 by Andrea Ansaldo (1584/1638)

“Judith and Holofernes” about 1636 by the Florentine Francesco Furini (1603/46)

“Influenced by Guido Reni, he produced paintings of soft sensuality. The tones of flesh made with ultramarine blue and shaded to give his pictures a sweet taste, soft, but no one can deny that he had a special gift to play the melodic line of the body women, thus revealing its attachment to the Mannerist tradition” (Rudolf Wittkower)

“Still Life with Tuberous Root” maybe by Luca Forte (about 1600/70)

“Cain and Abel” by Pietro Novelli aka Monrealese (1603/47)

“Samson and Delilah” by the Dutchman Matthias Stom (about 1600/50)

“The doughnut maker” 1630 by the so-called Bamboccio (Puppet) Pieter Van Laer (about 1595/1642)

“Country scene” and “Figures in a tree lined road” about 1640/50 landscapes by Angeluccio (fl. 1640/50) and figures by Michelangelo Cerquozzi (1602/60)

Four gouache on paper for Cardinal Francesco Barberini's tapestries now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art:

“Constantine destroying idols”, “Naval Battle of Crispus against Abate”, “Constantine kills the lion” and “Constantine burns the Decretals” about 1631 by Pietro Berrettini aka Pietro da Cortona (1597/1669)

“The massacre of Niobe” 1638/39 and “The Hunt of Diana” 1638/39 by Andrea Camassei (1602/49)

Four anamorphosis: “Portrait of Louis XIII”, “St. Francis of Paola”, “Scene of Marriage” and “Louis XIII before the crucifix” about 1635 by Jean François Niceron (1613/46)

BARBERINI PALACE - NATIONAL ART GALLERY (twenty-seventh part)

Room XXXIV - Artistic Presence in Northern Italy between 1600s and 1700s

Oval “Satyr and Cupid” about 1742/45 by G.B. Tiepolo (1696/1770)

“His art is the ultimate expression of the great European rococo, of international dimension and a triumph of painting skills from which the subsequent developments of painting, even with the new neoclassical style, would not prescind” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Portrait of a young smoker” about 1736 by Giacomo Cerruti aka Pitocchetto (1698/1768)

“It's a kind of representation that is separated from the moral implications of the pauperism genre and from the human depth of the portrait. (...) It is interesting to compare this portrait, which has the characteristics of everyday life pose and clothing, combined with a background city which shows the working life and everyday life, with the conception of the portrait of courtly parade, which prevails in Rome and includes archaeological elements to symbolize the cultural and antiquarian interests of the sitters, in a context that is intended to be emblematic and away from everyday life” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Allegory of architecture” by the Bolognese Giuseppe Maria Crespi aka the Spanish (1665/1747)

“It features the image with a contrast between the dark shadow of the background and the relief given by the diagonal light that strikes the figure” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Beheading of St. John the Baptist” by Pierre Louis Cretey (about 1635/about 1702)

“Bacchanal” by Giulio Carpioni (about 1613/78)

“Friar tempted by demons” and “Hermits tempted by demons” by Sebastiano Ricci (1659/1734)

“St. Bruno” and “Hermits at Prayer” by the Genoese Alessandro Magnasco (1667/1749)

“The disintegration of the figure in the fast and light touches of the brush suggest immediacy of execution and design, but the popularity of this kind of compositions of the painter is documented by the large number of variants that are known of this theme on which he practiced especially in the years between 1710 and 1720” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

Beautiful pastels “Portrait of a Young Woman” and “Portrait of a Young Man” by the great Venetian artist Rosalba Carriera (1675/1757)

“She worked for the major European courts specializing in the technique of pastel portrait, in which she showed extraordinary abilities. In Rome she was received in the Academy of St. Luke in 1705. (...) To the pastel technique that allows subtle nuances of colors, the artist combines the sensibility of touch which transfigure delicacy of feeling in the transparency of the material, making clear the inner feelings of the characters portrayed, a technique that left a determining imprint in French painting for artists such as Liotard” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Portrait of a Lady indoors” by Pietro Longhi (1701/85) and his son Alessandro Longhi (1733/1813)

“Young woman crying” and “Young woman laughing” by Pietro Antonio Rotari (1707/62) from Verona

“These paintings are part of the painter's rich production of female heads, reproducing usually a state of mind according to a sentimental typology. These half-figures 'of expression' were so successful that Catherine II, the Russian empress, after the painter's death, bought from his widow the entire production of this kind. Rotari produced about 250 works of this kind during his stay in Russia between 1756 and 1762 collected by the Russian nobility as well as the Empress. (...) He keeps a range of soft feelings and passages of mood with expressions only hinted pathetically” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Portrait of a Man” and “Portrait of the painter Antonio Cifrondi” by Vittore Ghislandi aka Fra' Galgario (1655/1743)

“If you compare the portraits of Ghislandi, which also often have an official quality with the parade portraits of the Roman school, from Maratta to Batoni, the difference that appears immediately is the most effective and detached description of the psychological nature of the sitter, even if it affects the officiality of the image at the expense of feelings and expression. Ghislandi also utilizes the power of color, which he incorporates from Venetian models, rather than the magnificence of the details, in order to emphasize the image” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

BARBERINI APARTMENT

East wing of the second floor

Beautifully decorated in the years 1750/70 in rococo style for Cornelia Costanza Barberini who married a member of the noble family Sciarra Colonna when she was twelve

The last descendant of the Barberini lived here until her death in 1960, although the building was owned by the state since 1947

In addition, section of decorative arts of the eighteenth century with costumes, furniture and porcelain

BARBERINI PALACE - NATIONAL ART GALLERY (twenty-sixth part)

Room XXXIII - Fabrizio and Fiammetta Lemme Donation. Designing Great Art

Preparatory sketches for paintings on canvas in the nave of St. Clement executed in the years 1711/16 including “Glory of St. Clement” by Giuseppe Chiari (1654/1727) for the ceiling of the church

“As it has been pointed out, the central figure is derived from the assumption of Annibale Carracci in S. Maria del Popolo, but the reference point is the Allegory of Mercy painted by Carlo Maratta in Palazzo Altieri in 1676. Fidelity to the text of his teacher borders here on plagiarism, or perhaps indicates the use of the original cartoons, in the group of two putti supporting the anchor down” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Stories of St. Clement and St. Ignatius of Antioch” for the walls of the church by some of the best painters in Rome in the second decade of 1700s:

“Death of S. Servolo” by Tommaso Chiari (1665/1773) brother of Giuseppe

“St. Clement imposes the veil to St. Domitilla” by Pietro de Pietri (1663/1716)

“Among the works of this cycle it is one of those that show 'more intensely maratta-like' features. With a composition of light classical approach proposing 'in decidedly eighteenth century tone, the golden language of Raphael'. The peculiar character of this sketch that marks also other works by De Pietri (for example, the Madonna and Child with Saints in S. Maria in Via Lata) is this intimate aspect, and it is one of the most original outcomes of Maratta's period' (Casale)” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Martyrdom of St. Clement” by Giovanni Antonio Grecolini (1675/1725)

“Translation of the body of St. Clement” by Giovanni Odazzi (1663/1731)

“The sketch shows less freshness than the final version as a fresco. Some indecisions show up affecting mainly the faces of St. Clement and the prelate behind. The prelate knelt before the body of St. Clement recalls a figure of G.B. Gaulli, the St. Nicholas, in the altarpiece in St. Mary Magdalene, which inspired Odazzi some other times as well” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Trajan condemning St. Ignatius of Antioch” by Giovanni Domenico Piastrini (1678/1740)

“St. Ignatius of Antioch meets St. Polycarp in Smyrna” by Giacomo Triga (1674/1746) pupil of Benedetto Luti

“Giacomo Triga, little-known pupil of Benedetto Luti, a virtuoso of the Pantheon, worked for the Patrizi and the Theodoli families, and in some Roman churches such as the Basilica of Sts. John and Paul, St. Francis of Paola and S. Marcello al Corso” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Martyrdom of St. Ignatius of Antioch” by Pier Leone Ghezzi (1674/1755)

“As Casale mentioned, this painting by Ghezzi in the Clementine series is presented as 'the less academic and more whimsical of the group' and 'hard to the limits of unpleasantness. But original' due 'to an compositional vehemence impatient of conventions and rules of composition” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Miracle of St. Clement in the Crimea” by Sebastiano Conca (1680/1764)

“It has been emphasized the differentiation of this sketch from the rest of the series for both the bright colors with respect to the general preference for crayon-like colors, and for the adoption of a small size that allows the presence of several figures without creating a scrum. ( ...) It as also noted by Casale (1998) that it is the masterpiece of the clementine series, a work in which the author reconciles the update on Maratti's reforms with a style that 'shows an early Rococo expression' (Sestieri)” (Francesca Mochi Onori)

The “Abandonment of Moses” and the “Sacrifice of Isaac” by Domenico Corvi (1721/1803) from Viterbo

They are models for the paintings in the side chapel of the Virgin of Seven Sorrows in S. Marcello al Corso, showing with their bright colors the influence of Corrado Giaquinto's painting

Extraordinary “Assumption of the Virgin” by Ludovico Mazzanti (1686/1775) a Gaulli's student, sketch for the 1720 fresco on the ceiling of the left transept of S. Ignatius

“Death of S. Joseph” 1712 by Francesco Trevisani (1656/1746) from Istria

It is a study for the altarpiece of the second chapel on the right in the church of St. Ignatius

Sketch of “Last meeting of Sts. Peter and Paul” for the 1766 canvas in the church of S. Lucia al Gonfalone, and preparatory sketch of '“Adoration of the Magi”, a work in S. Giuseppe alla Lungara, by the Sicilian Mariano Rossi (1731/1807)

“In the Last meeting of Sts. Peter and Paul mix, in a studied intersection of levels that follow the development of the action, relations with the work of Corrado Giaquinto but, as Giancarlo Sestieri pointed out, in an 'extreme simplification of form, based on an essentially linear conciseness' and 'developed especially in the footsteps of Marco Benefial and Francesco Mancini'“ (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Allegories of the four elements: water, air, fire and earth” 1767/68 by the Roman Stefano Pozzi (1699/1768) for the lunettes of the vault of a Cabinet in the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj

BARBERINI PALACE - NATIONAL ART GALLERY (twenty-fifth part)

Room XXXII - Collection of the Duke of Cervinara. French Paintings of the 1700s

“Dimitri Sursock Duke of Cervinara, a man of culture and an avid art collector, lived in London in a house where the works were on display along with rare and precious objects in a harmonious testimony of refined taste. Upon his death in 1960, he decided to leave the paintings in an Italian museum and his nephew Don Aspreno Colonna chose the Galleria Nazionale di Arte Antica. The collection is almost entirely made of eighteenth-century French paintings, very rare in Italy and in public collections” (Official website of the Barberini Gallery - www.galleriabarberini.beniculturali.it)

Marble bust “Portrait of a Gentleman” by Jean Jacques Caffieri (1725/92) the favorite sculptor of Louis XV, King of France from 1715 to 1774

“Morning Scene”, “Evening Scene” and “The little gardener” by François Boucher (1703/70) the favorite painter of Madame de Pompadour

It is a masterpiece overloaded with erotic passion

“One of the most perfect expressions of the production of Boucher. It represents the ideal of female beauty of the moment, graceful and gentle, seemingly naive and close to nature, in fact, extremely refined and carefully studied - just look at the pose, the drapery, the accurate arrangement of roses in her lap - meant to attract, to seduce, precisely, beyond moral meanings and emotional involvement” (Francesca Mochi Onori)

“Portrait of the Artist's Wife” 1755 by Jean Baptiste Greuze (1725/1805)

“Greuze had specialized in this type of depictions of bourgeois circles, imbued with good feelings, sometimes almost moral illustrations of novels (...). At the same time he became famous for his soft pictures of girls expressing a contained and sentimental melancholy” (Francesca Mochi Onori)

“The meeting”, “Family Group”, “The appointment”, “The Persian and the Statue” and “Fire” by Nicolas Lancret (1690/1743)

“From Antoine Watteau he took on one hand his attention to the study of nature, and, on second hand, the setting of the scenes related to the topics of nobility's elegant life, so as to create a genre that had its dignity with the definition of 'fête galante', with which he produced a type of painting that seems to be the codification of the elegant and frivolous appearance of French society in the early eighteenth century. Yet when Lancret dies, with him is over the moment of greatest success of this genre of painting that had tired followers and an evolution in pathetic and sentimental terms” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

Imaginary landscapes with ruins including “Monumental Fountain” and “Imaginary View of the Pantheon (The Wharf)” by Hubert Robert (1733/1808)

“Hubert Robert's painting is strongly influenced by his stay in Rome, which occurred between 1754 and 1765. When he returned to Paris, the ancient memories of Italy were the constant theme of his works: his scenes express his own touching feeling of a grandeur now lost, revised through the emotion of memories, now in a pre-Romantic key” (Official website of the Barberini Gallery - www.galleriabarberini.beniculturali.it)

“Twenty year old Annette” by the Frenchman Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732/1806)

“In paintings by Fragonard the main theme can be found in the joy of seduction, with no artificial filters, but as light as a game. (...) Fragonard is a painter full of sunshine, his paintings, imbued with bright colors, quick and lively in his strokes, perfectly express, rather than the sugary Boucher, the vital impulse of sensuality. His images directly affect the senses, without mental constructs or allegorical meanings” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Three young singers” by Antoine Le Nain (1599/1648)

“Young girl who gets out of bed” and “Hidden lover and indiscreet dog” by Jean Frederic Schall (1752/1825)

“The girl who gets out of bed is part of the first period of the painter. Small works such as this are typical of the production of Schall, when the whole scene is designed to titillate the viewer with an image risqué, the flight of the parrot is the excuse to show the half-naked girl in a graceful gesture” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“The birthday of the grandfather” of Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761/1845)

“He had a mishap with the law in 1794 for having executed a painting of the erotic genre, which prompted him to deal with an entirely different kind of subjects. His favorite subject in fact, in addition to portraits in which he was a master, became scenes of daily life, documenting customs of the time, with a very careful rendering of garments and details as well as the construction of the scenes. His paintings, as in this case, are often characterized by strong sentimentalism and research of 'good feelings', the reason why his production was particularly appreciated by the new middle class, almost counterpoint to the 'gallant parties' of the ancien regime. (...) His output was enormous: about five thousand portraits and five hundred genre scenes” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

BARBERINI PALACE - NATIONAL ART GALLERY (twenty-fourth part)

Room XXXI - Painting in Naples in the 1700s

“Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple” by Francesco Solimena (1657/1747) the best pupil of Luca Giordano

“Preparatory version for the fresco painted on the Counter façade of the Neapolitan Church of Gesù in 1725. The scene, theatrical and complex, reveals the great skills of Solimena painting a grand composition, in which monumental architecture is the background to the interweaving of characters with many different poses and expressions. The artist represents perfectly darting movements that emphasize the vibrancy of light” (Official website of the Barberini Gallery - www.galleriabarberini.beniculturali.it)

“Wedding contract” about 1752 and “Portrait of Father Giovannezio di Molina” by Gaspare Traversi (1722/70)

“Among the most interesting personalities of the eighteenth century in Naples. Pupil of Francesco Solimena, he was in Rome since 1752. His paintings show interest in nature and in Carracci's style and are aimed at a rigorous and sensitive rendering of reality, through which there is a vein of irony featured in scenes of everyday life” (Enciclopedia Treccani)

“Portrait of a lady” by Giuseppe Bonito (1707/89)

“A pupil of Francesco Solimena, Bonito is part of a generation of artists who determined the cultural climate of the Neapolitan eighteenth century with strong points of contact with the Spanish painting. In 1751 he was officially invested the office of House Painter of the King (...). He became also academic of St. Luke in 1752” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Meeting of Cardinal Anton Felice Chigi Zondanari and Philip V King of Spain”, “The grand master Marcantonio Zondanari receives the Turkish flags” and “Idolatry of Solomon” by Sebastiano Conca (1680/1764)

“Sebastiano Conca studied in Naples at the school of Francesco Solimena, but his career unfolded in Rome, where he assimilated the lessons of Carlo Maratta, who, with his school, had a hegemony over Roman painting, and yet he managed to blend it with his Neapolitan training rich of echoes of Luca Giordano, laying the foundations of the Roman Rococo” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Judgment of Solomon” and “Solomon and the Queen of Sheba” by Francesco De Mura (1696/1782)

“The Martyrdom of St. Denis” by Corrado Giaquinto (1703/66)

Denis was the first bishop of Lutetia, today Paris

Tradition has it that, during the persecution of Decius in about 250, after he had been beheaded on the hill which, following this event, took the name of Montmartre (mountain of the martyr), stood up, picked his head up and walked for 10 km (6.2 miles) continuing preaching as if nothing had happened

“Within the last Roman activity of the painter, in the period between 1949 and 1951, numerous sketches are known, characterized by immediacy of execution and density of material and color” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

Corvi Room - Characters of Myth and History

On the walls, life-size figures in niches to imitate ancient sculptures:

Ciro, Sofonisba, Zenobia, Achilles, Silla, Tuzia, Scipio, Lucrezia, Tullia, Faustina, Dido, Cleopatra, Alexander the Great

Decorations around the room with elegant friezes that evoke the inventions of older artworks by Piranesi

The room was painted in 1770 by Domenico Corvi (1721/1803) from Viterbo for Princess Costanza Barberini Colonna di Sciarra

BARBERINI PALACE - NATIONAL ART GALLERY (twenty-third part)

Room XXX - Landscapes and Views

Views of Rome including “Quirinal Square”, “Walk of Villa Medici” 1683, “Church of Trinità dei Monti” 1683 and “View of the Broken Bridge at Ripa Grande” 1685 by Gaspar van Wittel (1653/1736)

He was a Dutch painter naturalized Italian, known also as Gaspare Vanvitelli or Gaspare degli occhiali (Caspar with glasses)

He moved to Italy when he was twenty and he became an unbeatable landscape artist who also liked to use technical devices such as the optical box

He was the father of the great painter and architect Luigi Vanvitelli (1700/73)

“The setting of the view doesn't focus on the reproduction of the monuments, but amazingly they are equated with the image of the city's daily life. The sharpness of the image, made more transparent by the technique of tempera on parchment, with a natural perspective, focuses on the reproduction of aspects of the city in the life of the inhabitants, without research for monumentality or for picturesque” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

Four splendid views of Venice: “Piazza S. Marco and the Procuratie” about 1730, “Canal Grande” about 1737, “Rialto Bridge” about 1735 and “Small square with the Library of St. Mark” about 1737 by Giovanni Antonio Canal aka Canaletto (1697/1768)

“From his first work signed and dated, which is of 1723, the technique of Canaletto develops more and more towards a sharp clarity that sees the use, for the accuracy of perspective effects, of the system of the optical chamber, which was used to obtain the drawing of the contours of the view through the projection of the image. In the Rialto Bridge the bridge itself is not at the center of the scene and the protagonist is not the monument. It rather prevails a vivid description of daily life in Venice” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“View of imperial castle of Schlossof” about 1762 and “View of the Market Square in Dresden” about 1748 by Bernardo Bellotto (1721/80) who had his uncle Canaletto as master

He lived in Dresden, Vienna and Warsaw and he documented those cities almost photographically

“Venice, the church of St. George as seen from Giudecca Canal” about 1770 and “Architectural Capriccio with a pyramid, Roman ruins and figures” about 1775 by Francesco Guardi (1712/93)

“He began as a figure painter, and soon emerged with a production characterized by the interpretation of landscapes according to a sense closer to the atmospheric rendering. His views are not defined by the sharp lines of perspective of Canaletto, of whom, however, he used the engravings for his paintings, and Bellotto, but rather the city's image is filtered by the light and atmosphere of the lagoon” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Landscape with figures” by the Flemish who settled in Rome Jan Frans Van Bloemen aka Orizzonte (1662/1749)

“Jan Frans, also known as Orizzonte (Horizon) to distinguish him from his older brother Pieter, also a painter and known as Stendardo (Banner), arrived in Rome in 1688 (...). The Arcadian vision of the landscape in Van Bloemen goes with the serenity of the Lazio region landscape while not forgetting the examples of the grandeur of Claude Lorrain (1600/82) and of the classical Gaspard Dughet (1615/75) his masters in Rome” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Landscape with ruins and figures” by the Roman Andrea Locatelli (1693/1741)

“His painting harmonizes the elements taken from Gaspard Dughet, Claude Lorrain and Jan Frans van Bloemen aka Orizzonte in the Arcadian ideal of the eighteenth century through the careful rendering of the true and the use of a deep brightness” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Landscape with figures and statue of the Tiber” about 1735, “Architectural Capriccio with the Borghese Gladiator”, “Capriccio with Roman ruins and the Pyramid of Cestius” about 1745 and “Capriccio with Roman ruins and the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius” about 1750 by Giovanni Paolo Pannini (1691/1765) from Piacenza who mixes the real and the imaginary ruins

“His creative originality was accompanied by a style maturation that moved from Benedetto Luti and Sebastiano Conca, with a gradual lightening of the palette and the achievement of a taste perfectly collimating with the French, as evidenced by the clear debts against him of famous painters such as Hubert Robert and Emile Jean Horace Vernet” (Giancarlo Sestieri)

“View of the Alban Hills and Ariccia” and “Waterfall of the Aniene River at Tivoli” 1769 by the German Jacob Philipp Hackert (1737/1807)

“For the French, in the wake of Pannini and of the landscape with ruins paintings, landscape has an essentially evocative meaning and does not represent a line of independent research with a direct focus on natural reality. Hackert's work has an Enlightenment dimension which shines in its technique, in the subtle signs with which he circumscribes areas, to enhance the sharpness of the natural effects” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)