Architectural Capriccio With Ancient Roman Ruins, Column And Arches. Year 1718.

Architectural Capriccio with ancient Roman ruins, column and arches.  
Year 1718.
Oil on canvas.  Original canvas.  
Roman school of the early eighteenth century.  

The painting is part of the series of 3 paintings of the same size and subject, which we offer for sale separately.  One of the paintings is signed Giuseppe Longhi, dated 1718. A painter unknown to scholars, it becomes a small discovery that raises the curtain on painters of the imaginative architecture of the Roman school before Panini.  This painting is unsigned.  
In the painting we see a building from the Roman era represented in ruins, with arches made of large blocks of stone, a fluted column on the left.  
In the background, an Italian landscape with cypresses opens up.  While in the foreground two peasant-men with a basket of vegetables kneel in front of the woman with a white hat, which suggests a woman from Ciociaria.  
Next to the couple - a small dog: caption allusion to fidelity.  

The painting has been restored, it has some signs of the time and retouche.